


A Distant Prologue

by MoriartyElias



Series: The Gay Magic Story [1]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Alternate Canon, Canon Rewrite, F/F, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Character, Trans Gideon, Transphobia, buckle up friends i'm gonna go buckwild, officially can't tell what aspects of the new chapter need to be tagged
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 22:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17816789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoriartyElias/pseuds/MoriartyElias
Summary: They were the Gatewatch. They saved every plane they set foot on, because what else could they do? They had made a promise, not to any of the people they had saved but to each other. And the Multiverse will probably never run out of praise for them.But before they were the Gatewatch, they were people. Extraordinary people, not for their powers but for the way they saw the world. They were children, once, unsure of their place in the world and searching for a way to begin their lives.So, this is the story of the Gatewatch before they were. The story of Gideon, of Jace, of Liliana, of Chandra and Nissa. The story of what happened before they started to save worlds.





	1. The Shield of Akros

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the first installment of the Gay Magic Story, also known as my insane plan to rewrite all of post-Mending Magic: the Gathering lore to be both better-written and way more LGBT+. Will this prove to be a story of reckless ambition gone horribly wrong, or will Wizards fire their Creative team and just start linking to my fanfic? Who knows. All I know is, I'm here to have fun and hopefully share that around a little.

If there was one thing that Kytheon Iora missed about his time in the army, it was the marching songs. They weren’t the best songs in Akros; the lyrics were unimaginative, the word choice was boring and there wasn’t a hoplite alive who could carry a tune, but they had a beat and you could march to them. It wasn’t much, but it was more than could be said for the chorus of pained grunts that surrounded him.

Kytheon took another step, and his body screamed. Another step, another jolt of pain, another rush of fire through his shoulders and calves. With each step, a push against the crank. And with each push, one of the buckets would jolt upward.

He’d lost count of how many steps it took to lift a bucket from the hole in the floor to the hole in the ceiling. He’d lost count of how many steps he’d actually taken a long time ago. It felt like days. He hoped it had only been minutes. There was no way of telling time down here. He’d heard from old men in the Foreigners’ Quarter that there was no time in the Waterfall of Akros, that they kept all of the time in the water that went up and down on ropes all day. “Time is for free men,” they would say as they sat on their curbs, waiting in vain for a god of lost causes to bless them.

Sometimes, Kytheon wondered about the gods. Not as often as they’d like, but enough that the air was a little warmer around temples during his cold nights on the streets. He wondered if any of them were watching him. He wondered who they saw.

“First group! Water!”

The jailer was about as far from a god as you could get, but those few barked words sounded like a blessing to Kytheon’s ears. Every bone in his body just wanted to collapse on the beam he’d been pushing, but he forced himself off of it. One foot in front of the other. Away from the crank, trudging side by side with the other prisoners. They were all swaying, barely able to stand without the machine, but nobody here was willing to lean on anybody.

He barely blinked, and suddenly he was slumping against a pillar, sliding down until his rump met some crumbled bit of masonry. There was a hunk of bread in his hand, and a chipped cup full of water was halfway to his lips. Kytheon sighed in relief, tipping the cup back and drinking it all in one gulp. He sniffed the bread, and something like a smile creased his face. Stale, but no worse than what he’d find in the Quarter. He bit down in relish, not even caring that he choked on the crumbs.

“Tribute, worms.”

Kytheon looked up at the unexpected voice, and ground his teeth as he saw a man walking among the prisoners. One by one, they tore off what looked like half of their bread, then dropped it into a sack the man was holding out. Some who had eaten especially quick dropped everything they had left into the bag, and Kytheon saw their eyes fill with hunger. There was no hesitation in their offering, though, and if the man’s bearing was any evidence, he wouldn’t take kindly to it.

Kytheon took another bite of his bread, and stared the man down as he turned and advanced. He was so heavy and covered in so much hair and scars that Kytheon almost mistook him for a minotaur. So, strong but not clever. The sort of man who only stole bread by the handful. That meant he was following orders.

“Tribute,” the thug grunted, holding out the sack. Kytheon looked down at his hunk of bread, then slowly looked up at the collector. He looked at the bread, and gave what he probably thought was an intimidating grunt. Kytheon kept his face neutral, lifted the bread to his mouth, and took a big bite.

“Did you not hear me the first time, quim?”

Kytheon usually made a point of not talking with his mouth full. Today, he made a point of also chewing very, very slowly. When he finally swallowed, it was only then that he grinned. “The king does not collect tribute from rats like us. And even if he did, I suspect his collector would at least do Akros the decency of wearing a shirt.”

The thug growled, but Kytheon saw his eyes dart to the side for a moment. Looking for permission, no doubt. Tempted as he was to follow the man’s gaze, Kytheon sighed and braced himself against the pillar. He made a point of tightening his grip on the bread.

The thug lashed out with a kick, swift and brutal. Kytheon blinked, and let the magic well up inside him and wrap around him. He felt the impact, felt his head slam back against the pillar, but he didn’t feel a single flicker of pain. He looked up at the thug and grinned, his body flickering with bands of golden light.

“Was that supposed to hurt?”

Kytheon grabbed just above the thug’s ankle, keeping the foot firmly pressed against his face. He could feel the thug’s confusion, and better than that, his fear. Once Kytheon was certain of his grip and had his feet in the right position, he stood up. The thug was on his back in a second, and Kytheon was standing over him without a scratch.

The golden light faded, and Kytheon reached down to grab the sack of bread. As he lifted it, his gaze met the prisoners who had been left with nothing but scraps. He took a last bite of his own bread, then tossed the sack to the biggest of them.

“Take yours, then give them what’s theirs. The Waterfall of Akros has no king.”

Kytheon had just enough time to hear someone bark an order, and then the thug underneath him kicked upwards. Kytheon fell to his knees, and he let the golden light spill outward again.

By the time the guards were able to step in, there were five battered bodies lying on the ground around Kytheon.

 

~

 

“Do you believe that you did a good thing yesterday?”

Kytheon looked up from his cot. There was someone outside his cell, but they didn’t sound angry, and he couldn’t see any weapons. What little light there was glinted off of a polished breastplate, and the guard stationed outside of his door was standing ramrod straight. From that, it was obvious.

“Why would I do it if I didn’t believe that, warden?”

The shadowy figure shook his head. “Don’t try that. Questions need to have answers, not just more questions. That brawl in the waterworks was your fault, and there are twelve men lying in the infirmary because of it.”

Kytheon sat up a little on his cot, his eyebrows raised in confusion. “Not counting me, there were five men in that brawl. What happened to the others?”

“You challenged a king, but you got taken out before you could dethrone him. A friend of yours took it upon himself to incite a riot and finish the job.” There was the clinking of keys, and the cell door swung inward. In the brief flicker of darkness as the thick metal portal passed between Kytheon and the torchlight, the warden had crossed the cell and settled on the space beside Kytheon. He couldn’t stop himself from jolting away and flattening against a wall.

“I believe it was Drasus,” the warden continued, scratching his beard in the dark. “He isn’t in the infirmary, in case you were worried.” He waved a hand, and the cell door slammed shut. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

Kytheon bared his teeth at the warden. “Of course I did the right thing. He was a bully and a thief, and those people would have gone hungry without me.”

The warden had a sword at his side, but his hands stayed patiently folded on his lap. “They are prisoners, just like you, some of them jailed for far worse crimes than you. Many people would say they are the kind of men who deserve to go hungry.”

Kytheon ground his teeth, and the golden light started pulsing in his chest. “If all they eat is the scraps of some prison king, they’ll learn to be bullies. If they eat a full meal because of someone with no reason to feed them, then maybe they’ll learn to feed the hungry. We have nothing down here in the dark, so why not show mercy?”

The warden made a sound that was almost a chuckle. “This is not the first time that I have sat in an instigator’s cell, you know. There are always riots, always power struggles. But this is only the second time that I have heard of someone doing it out of mercy. What do you believe is merciful about the men you beat into the ground?”

“I could have killed them,” Kytheon shot back without a second thought. “You know I could have.” He raised his fist for emphasis.

The warden shrugged. “I only know what I’ve read in the reports. And you are someone who generates a lot of paperwork.” There was the sound of a scroll unfurling, and then there was light.

The warden was old, but it wasn’t the kind of age that Kytheon was used to seeing. Most old men in his life were withered and decrepit things, their days spent on the side of the road, waiting for Athreos. But the warden was a man who wore his age lightly, like a silken coat. His full black beard was fading to grey and the stern lines of his face were wreathed in wrinkles, but below the neck he was built as strong and proud as any hoplite. One hand glowed with a crackling white light, while the other traced its way along the scroll.

“The criminal known as Kytheon Iora, birth name Kythea Io--.”

Kytheon shot across the cell, his fist slamming into the warden’s throat without a second’s hesitation. The old man choked on his words, and Kytheon grabbed the scroll away from him. The only glyphs he recognized were those that spelled out his old name, but that was all he needed to convince him there was nothing of value here. He tore the scroll to pieces, scattering the shreds on the floor.

“My name,” he growled, the golden light arcing across his body, “is Kytheon. They are Kytheon’s Irregulars, not Kythea’s Suitors. If you say that name again, I _will_ kill you.”

The warden looked up, and narrowed his eyes. He raised his hand, the white light sparking and leaping from finger to finger. “Kytheon Iora, you are under arrest.”

His eyes flashed with solid white, and Kytheon was suddenly pulled off his feet and slammed back against the wall. There were golden chains at his hands and feet, hanging weightlessly in the air but binding him with all the force of steel. The warden coughed, his eyes wide with either surprise or fear.

“That... that spell is supposed to bind you with your true name. I thought it, it wouldn’t work, it couldn’t have worked, you can’t be...” He reached down and grabbed a scrap of paper from the ground, and he stared down at it. “The broken shall be made whole,” he whispered, and the white light crackled across the paper and arced to the floor, snatching other scraps and pulling them up to fuse with the first. “It says here that you were thrown out of the army because you had lied about your gender.” The warden looked up at Kytheon. “I suppose you would disagree with that statement.”

“I know who I am,” Kytheon growled, struggling against the chains. “I am a man.”

The warden simply looked Kytheon up and down. Without even watching the old man’s eyes, Kytheon knew where he was looking. The wide hips, the slim little shoulders, and every line of his torso, all of it trying to push back against what he believed. “I am a man,” he said again, but in the defeated tone of someone who knows they aren’t being listened to.

“So I see.” The warden let go of the scrap of paper, and it fell away into shreds again. “Well, Kytheon, much as I hate to say it, this changes things. I shall need to make new arrangements.” The chains disappeared with a wave of his hand, and Kytheon slumped to the floor.

“I will see you tomorrow, Kytheon. I would strongly advise that you get some rest.”

The warden was gone before Kytheon could lift his head.

 

~

 

When Kytheon awoke, it was to a sore chest and the smell of fresh bread. The sore chest, he realized as he rose slowly to a sitting position, was because he’d slept with his binder on again. He fumbled with his shirt, cursing himself for forgetting it again. It took a few minutes to unwind the knot of cloth at his back, but that first clear breath was worth it.

Then he remembered the bread. The smell was coming from the warden, who stood at the open door of the cell. He had torn a fresh loaf of bread in half, but had turned his back on the cell. Kytheon looked down at himself, sighed, and tucked the binder underneath his blanket. “Good morning, warden.”

“Ahem. Ah, good morning, Kytheon. Are you ready to begin?”

Kytheon swung himself off the cot, the pain in his chest forgotten in the wake of his rising hunger. Some part of his brain expected the chains to lunge for him again, but his fist closed around one half of the bread with no resistance. He was halfway through his second mouthful of the crispy, chewy ambrosia when his brain caught up with his ears. “Ready to begin what, sir?”

The warden stepped out of the cell, and gestured for Kytheon to follow. There was not even the shadow of a guard at the door, and Kytheon realized that the warden’s scabbard was empty. “You needn’t address me in so professional a manner. We are hardly among hoplites anymore, after all. You may call me Hixus.” Hixus set off down the hall, and Kytheon darted after him. “As for beginnings, you may consider this the start of your training.”

Kytheon stopped halfway through his latest bite. “I think you missed a few steps there, warden. What are you training me in, and how do you even know I’ll say yes?”

“Half your day training and half on the Waterfall, or the full day on the Waterfall.” It should have sounded like a threat, or a bargaining chip, but Hixus made it sound like a choice, as simple as calling heads or tails on a coin. And all the while, he kept that confident stride, bringing them past cell after cell that Kytheon didn’t have the stomach to check for prisoners. It seemed like a better idea to just keep walking.

“There are three kinds of people who end up in this prison. There are the people who take what is put in front of them, the starving thieves and trespassers and low-born enemies of high-born scum.” Hixus tore a piece from his bread and popped it into his mouth before continuing. “There are the people who take everything they can, the murderers and kidnappers and self-styled kings of dirt heaps.” Another piece of bread torn from his half-loaf, and he began fumbling for a heavy ring of keys. Kytheon saw in that moment how easy it would be to reach out and grab them.

“And finally, there are the people who give. The people who steal a loaf of bread for the sake of an urchin they saw not more than five minutes ago, who murder those who could never be persecuted, who stand in the way of the men who take.” Hixus stopped, and lifted a key to fit into an innocuous oaken door. “It is that third category in which my superiors have expressed a keen interest.”

Kytheon scoffed, chewing his way through the boundless warmth of the bread. “What would they want with me? I’m just a kid with a conscience.” Hixus shot him a look, and Kytheon grinned. “That, and I’m indestructible.”

“You’re far more than simply indestructible,” Hixus said as he swung the door open. “You’re like me, Kytheon. You’re a hieromancer.”

“I’m sure that means something to anyone who knows what that word means.” Kytheon followed the warden through the door, and he blinked in surprise at the sunlight. They had stepped outside. Three days in prison, and Kytheon had already been asking himself if he would ever feel the sun again, and now here it was. The tight walls of the prison hallway were behind him, and it felt like he was taking his first real breath of air in far too long.

As the spots cleared from his eyes, Kytheon saw that for all the hope and freedom welling up in his heart, he was not free. They were standing in some kind of courtyard, a lifeless expanse of packed dirt surrounded by massive stone walls. The only door out of the courtyard was the one they had just passed through.

“Ah, of course. My apologies. It seems I have spent too much time in the company of men who think themselves educated.” Hixus made a gesture that sent sparks of white light across his palm, and Kytheon heard the door slam shut behind him. “Hieromancy is, quite simply, the magic of law.”

Kytheon couldn’t decide whether to laugh or spit in the old man’s face. “You know why I made the Irregulars, don’t you? There’s no magic in law. The law doesn’t work.” The warden rounded on him, and Kytheon couldn’t stop himself from taking a nervous step back.

“One poorly cast spell does not mean there is no value in magic.” For the briefest moment, there was an edge to Hixus’s words, and his eyes took on a piercing light that felt brighter than the sun. “The justice that you and your vigilantes hand out in the streets is law, though I doubt I could find it written down anywhere in Akros. You have been an agent of the laws of human decency, of goodness and morality, and it is upon these laws that the most powerful hieromancy is built.” As if to demonstrate, Hixus threw out his hand and shouted, “Stay where you are and don’t do anything stupid!”

There was a flash of light, and Kytheon tried to dodge the gesture as though it were a javelin. The same golden chains from the day before sprung up out of the earth beneath him, the manacles going for his wrists and ankles like they were vipers. The magic clamped down, and Kytheon stopped in place. He pulled at the chains, tried to summon the golden light, but nothing changed.

“Most laws are built upon very simple foundations, Kytheon. The entire idea of prison can be summed up in the phrase ‘stay where you are’, and any civic liberty worth preserving is built on ‘please don’t hurt me’.” The chains disappeared, and Kytheon covered himself in the golden light just to make sure it was still there. “That aegis you’re casting right now, for example. Nothing less than the purest expression of a desire for safety.”

“You’re making it sound so easy.” Kytheon did his best to laugh, curling up inside the... aegis, had he called it? It wasn’t warm, but it felt safe. Hixus was right.

Kytheon was not sure if he liked it when Hixus was right.

Hixus nodded and chuckled, as though Kytheon had told a joke. “The law is a simple thing that can easily be made complex. Consider combat, for one. Supposedly, the aim is purely to thrust your own blade into the enemy and prevent their blade from piercing you. And yet, there are a hundred thousand styles of combat and at least three times that many weapons. So it is with the law, and therefore with hieromancy.”

Kytheon dismissed his aegis and got to his feet. “You said your superiors were interested in what I can do. Do they want to make lawmakers out of prisoners?”

“Truthfully? That is what I want.” The warden’s face was stormy for a moment. “But no. I simply convinced them that there are people who give in my prison, and that at least offering the illusion of a career as a lawmage might be able to reform some of them.”

Kytheon looked around at the arena, then back to Hixus. “So. Training?”

Hixus smiled, and a whispered spell brought a sword flying into his hand on the end of a chain of light. “Training.”

 

~

 

From there, life settled into a cycle. Kytheon woke at the crack of dawn and then spent half the day training with Hixus. Sometimes they would spend that half-day trading blows in the arena as Kytheon explored his magic, but more often than not he would find himself in the warden’s office, reading scroll after scroll. Then, after a simple meal of meat and fruit that made Kytheon feel more rich than his wildest dreams, he would be led to the Waterfall in chains.

Somewhere around the third month of training, Kytheon asked Hixus not to tell him how long they had been training for. “My sentence is only ten years,” he had said suddenly while reading about property law, “and if one day you tell me that today marks the ninth year of my training, I’ll spend that whole year stressing over every single wasted moment.” Hixus had nodded, and Kytheon had let himself forget the passage of time.

The Waterfall was peaceful, for a time. When Kytheon had first been brought down, a ragged cheer had risen up, and he had learned during his first break that they had thought him executed. At every meal, people tried to gather before him and present him with tribute. Each time, he did his best to turn them away.

“Keep up your strength,” he would tell them. “Do you see hunger on my face? No. If you feel I am owed something, pay your tribute to the hungry. Be strong. Be kind. Today, the Waterfall makes good men.”

When he was on the crank, Kytheon could feel the fruit of his labours. The prisoners around him could see plain as day what he was, but instead of taunting him for not being able to push the crank as hard as they could, they simply bent their backs and tried to push harder. Any time that his step faltered, Kytheon could feel the other prisoners surge forward, doing their best to lift his burden, if only for a moment.

“We could lead a rebellion.” Drasus was the only prisoner brave enough to actually sit with Kytheon, instead of worshipping him from afar. If Kytheon was being honest, sometimes he thought his lieutenant sat too close. “If you stood up and killed one of those guards, there isn’t a man here who wouldn’t follow in your footsteps. We could bring this whole prison down in a day.”

“And what would that prove?” Kytheon did his best not to hate the stale bread. Most days, he asked Hixus if the bread that came with their meals could be kept stale, so that he did not feel that he was too good for the prisoners’ food. That day, though, it had been fresh, and he struggled not to choke on the prison bread.

“It would prove that you’re strong,” Drasus said, clenching a fist. “The Irregulars would rule the Quarter. Your word would be law.”

Kytheon sighed, and threw what was left of his bread out into the open. The group that was resting all turned to stare at the bread, then at Kytheon. Nobody made a move. Some of them, he was proud to see, made a point of looking him in the eye and continuing to eat their own portion. Kytheon smiled at Drasus, then addressed his onlookers.

“Sorry, everyone. My hand slipped. Could somebody get that for me?”

The prisoners surged to their feet, although most of them collapsed in the same breath. Drasus went to stand, but Kytheon grabbed his shoulder. “Not you. You want my word to be law? Let the law handle itself.”

A guard stepped into the middle of the fumbling ring of prisoners, his sandal stopping right next to Kytheon’s bread. Everyone froze, but none of them averted their gaze or tried to look like they weren’t paying attention. No, they were preparing for a fight.

The guard bent down and picked up the bread, then turned to face Kytheon. He advanced very carefully, his eyes watching for any surprise attacks and his hand wiping off any dirt and dust. For his part, Kytheon just smiled, and held out his hand. He heard the great crank begin to slow, as though all eyes were on the guard.

The guard knelt, and pressed what was left of the bread into Kytheon’s hand. “Sorry about that, sir. I would have moved faster, but I did not want to cause a scene.”

“Well done, sergeant.” Kytheon took a large bite of the bread, and grinned at Drasus. “That will be all, sergeant.”

As the guard hurried away and the crank began to turn again, Drasus stared. “How did you...?”

“I am strong here, Drasus.” Kytheon stood, and he smiled at how easy it was getting to stand up after turning the crank. “I carried the law with me in the Quarter, and I carry it with me here in the Waterfall. It is a poor strength that feels it must tear down the walls in order to stand on its own two feet.”

They didn’t speak much after that.

 

~

 

Hixus did not strike Kytheon as the sort for gift-giving. He usually kept his distance, preferring to teach from the other side of the desk than try to squeeze two people behind a desk built for one. There was no real sentimentality in his office, just paperwork and a few spare weapons. Except for today, when he asked Kytheon to unwrap a cloth bundle. It looked expensive, like some sort of toga intended for a philosopher. Given what Hixus had said on the subject of philosophers, it wasn’t surprising to see something like this being used to wrap a gift.

“Giving me my own sword?” Kytheon joked as he fiddled with the folds. Rather than buying rope, Hixus had bound the bundle with magic. The spell was a simple assurance of confidentiality, child’s play to dismiss even if Kytheon hadn’t been given permission.

“Treasured apprentice though you are, you are still a prisoner. I cannot let you own a weapon.” Hixus smiled, and poured two cups of wine. “I’ve chosen something far more powerful.”

Hidden among the silken folds of the scarcely-worn toga, there was a breastplate of leather armor. It felt smooth against Kytheon’s fingers, and smelled of meat and steel. There were buckles and straps in every conceivable place, meant to tighten the garment around one’s chest. As Kytheon lifted the leather from its wrappings, he saw that the inside had been lined with sheep’s wool.

“What is this for?” he asked. “I already have the aegis. Armor is just going to slow me down.”

“It’s not armor in that sense,” Hixus explained as he sipped at his wine. He looked nervous, like when he was trying to explain a law he was unfamiliar with. “It’s... for your chest.”

“Oh.”

Like everything else in his life, Kytheon’s binder had weathered conditions it was never designed for, was very scarcely washed except when it was soaked through by rain that he couldn’t avoid, and had never quite fit right. He could tolerate these facts when they related to his clothes or his sandals, but feeling the itching and the tightness of breath from the binder was not something he could ignore. Every time that he tied it as tight as he could only to make himself half-sore in the chest, every time he felt himself straining against it, every time he had to take it off, it was just a painful reminder. Every breath felt broken, or worse, just that little bit out of place. Being able to feel the binder at all sometimes felt like a betrayal, like just because he could still feel his breasts, he was trapped in this body by choice.

Hixus got up from his seat with both cups of wine and walked to the door. “I’ll be in the arena when you’re ready. Please, take all of the time you need.” He left the office, and Kytheon was alone.

Kytheon tore the shirt from his back and ripped the binder off with all his strength, choking out a laugh as he watched the torn scrap fall to the floor. He slipped on the leather with ease, and the simple feel of the wool against his skin was ecstasy itself. He pulled at the straps and buckled the buckles, tinkering and twisting until at last, he took a breath and felt... better. This time, when Kytheon looked down at himself, he felt like he was finally seeing a man.

It had been amazing to realize who he was. It was breathtaking to be able to see it.

 

~

 

“Thank you, Hixus.”

The warden smiled, and his smile only grew wider as his eyes swept over Kytheon. “Now there’s a look you don’t often see in prison.”

Kytheon looked down at himself, unsure what was being seen. He had put his shirt back on over his new binder, and aside from the flatter chest he looked much the same as he had before. “Pretty sure I’m dressed like all the rest, warden.”

“Not your wardrobe, Kytheon. Your face.” Hixus held out the second cup of wine, and grinned when Kytheon conjured a chain to grab it from his hand instead of taking a step forward. “The Waterfall does not often play host to men without fear, no matter what the boasting of thugs may tell you. Fear of punishment, of death, or simply the fear of not knowing what will happen tomorrow. But right now, Kytheon, I don’t see a hint of fear on your face.”

“Thank you,” Kytheon said again. “For the, the armor. It helps.”

At that, Hixus seemed to cloud over. His eyes drifted down to the dirt, and he turned his empty cup over and over in his hands. Kytheon drank his own portion, enjoying the soft bite of the wine and how it felt so rich. Drinking that wine, standing in an arena with armor that made him feel more alive than he had ever felt before, it was as if he were a gladiator.

“I have spoken to many of your plight, Kytheon.” Hixus spoke slowly, deliberately, choosing his words with extreme care. “I would have brought them to meet you, but the ones that wanted to did not seem to understand that I was not inviting them to a freak show. I wanted them to help you. But they did not think you could be helped.” White light flowed over Hixus’s hands, an aegis, and he crushed the cup between his fingers like a poorly-cast clay bowl.

“What did they think could be done for me?” Kytheon asked. Overhead, the clouds were parting, and the sun beat down on the arena with an oppressive heat.

Hixus ground his teeth. “They claimed... they claimed that there was a curse on you. That perhaps your parents offended the gods, and so their son was cast into the form of a woman to deny them something.”

Kytheon stared in shock. “But... I never knew my parents. I was left on the curb in the Foreigners’ Quarter. Why would I be cursed if they never kept me?”

“A philosopher would argue, it is because of the curse that they left you, not the other way around. They believe there must have been some great offence, that you were perhaps prophesied as a boy but then... they claim that the gods broke you to spite your parents.” Hixus was crackling with light, a thousand laws and statutes of retribution arcing off of him and sparking against the sand. “But I cannot believe this. I will not believe this. And I implore you, you must not believe it either.”

“Why would I doubt it?” Kytheon asked. “How else would this happen? I cannot think of what to call this damned state except a curse, and who else would curse me so but the gods? Who am I to question the gods?”

“You are a hieromancer, Kytheon Iora. You carry the law, you carve it upon the face of an uncaring world, and you bring justice to those who have laboured beneath the boots of misery and oppression.” Hixus dismissed his spells, though it did little to ease the fury on his face. “And if this is the gods’ doing, then the gods have broken the law.” He stretched out a hand, and when next he spoke it shook the sky. “The child cannot be made to bear the sins of the father!”

The spell struck Kytheon like a lightning bolt, and for an instant he burned so bright that he felt like the sun itself. The law washed over him, hieromancy designed not to restrain but to liberate, desperately tearing at every shred of womanhood that remained. But something pushed against the spell, held fast to his form and refused to shift him. At last, Kytheon fell to his knees in the sand, screaming for the pain to stop.

Hixus withdrew his hand and stood there, his forehead wet with sweat. It was no sweat of effort; Kytheon knew that hieromancy placed no strain on the body. It was from the heat, the sun’s heat. Kytheon did not dare look up, for fear that he would recognize the shape that the clouds were making.

“This cannot be,” Hixus muttered. “The gods are meant to be the source of our laws. They are our stewards, our guardians, our righteous masters.” He clenched the hilt of his sword, and reached down to offer Kytheon a hand. “I, I cannot reject the gods. They have made too much, been here too long. They, they said they would not forsake us.” The heat seemed to relent for a moment, but once Kytheon was standing, Hixus continued.

“And yet, they have forsaken you.” There were tears in his eyes, a sorrow that did not suit the veteran’s stoic face. “You, my most precious pupil. A pure soul despite all the world’s efforts to shape you otherwise. The gods look upon you, and proclaim you cursed? Then I say, curse them in return.”

The heat came crashing down like a hammer, and Kytheon conjured an aegis to shield himself. Something was happening to the sand. He looked up at his mentor, who gleamed with his own aegis and seemed unperturbed by the attack.

“I’m not strong enough,” Kytheon wept. “Theros is their dominion. No matter how far I run, no matter what I do, will their wrath not still be upon me? What use is it to reject the gods?”

“I do not reject the gods,” Hixus said, his voice growing louder as though he was not already being listened to. “I reject their authority, with which they oppress you. I reject their pettiness, which drives them to mock us so. And I reject their arrogance, which makes them believe that they, that anyone, could ever be so powerful as to have the right to curse you thusly.”

Kytheon expected the heat to double, to bake them alive inside their own magic. What happened instead was far more terrifying; the warmth of the sun vanished, and the sky exploded with stars. The two looked up in wonder and confused horror as day became night, and night became Nyx.

The stars flowed and clashed like waves on the ocean, and Kytheon realized that Nyx was not formless. He saw Heliod, wrapped in golden nova and lifting a spear with a sharpened galaxy as its head in one hand while his other hand seized upon the throat of Erebos. The god of death brandished his whip, a coiling wisp of starless space, and wrestled against the sun god’s grip. In the moment before whip met spear, though, the sky flashed with white, and Nyx was gone.

Kytheon had no idea how long he stood there, blinking away the shadows of the gods. A part of him wanted to fall to his knees and mutter whatever prayers he could remember, but Hixus’s words still rang in his head, and so he kept standing. Then, the bells started to ring. An alarm was being raised.

“A prison break?” Kytheon asked, his mind buzzing with laws to contain the unruly. An unearthly shriek filled the sky, a single voice that was joined by more and more every second. Underneath the shriek, just barely louder than the bells, was the incessant flapping of wings.

“Harpies,” Hixus gasped. Kytheon had heard stories of the dreadful bird-fiends, how they would fly ahead of great bands of monsters and lead them towards cities. Sometimes, he had even heard their ghastly screams from far away beyond the walls. But he had never heard so many, and never so close to Akros.

“How can they be this close?” Kytheon asked, the echoes of the shriek ringing in his ears. “The scouts should have seen something, right?”

“Do you forget so quickly what your eyes have seen, Kytheon?” Hixus had drawn his sword, and after that first panicked word seemed to have regained his calm. “This is no surprise attack by a feral rabble. This is the wrath of the gods. It is useless to question how, and all we can do now is react.”

“React.” The bells kept ringing, the harpies kept shrieking, and Kytheon kept breathing faster and faster. The aegis crawled over his skin, writhing and pulsing as his heart rose and fell. “I... how do I react to this?”

There were screams now. Human screams. Kytheon went to block his ears, but Hixus stepped forward and pulled his hands away.

“This magic you call upon is a shield, is it not? Tell me, hieromancer, do you leave your shield sitting in a closet when you race off to battle?”

“No sir!” This was an army regulation, one of the few laws Kytheon had known before his training. “Your shield should be your first weapon. To block an attack is to create an opening, but to attack is to be open.”

“And who is attacking, Kytheon Iora?”

“Monsters.” His breathing had slowed for a second, but now it was taking off again. “Harpies, cyclopes, there might even be chimera in there...”

“ _Who are they attacking_ , Kytheon Iora?”

Far away, there was a brief crackle of lightning, and then a very different kind of shriek. It was a death cry. The harpies were in range of the peltasts, and they were defending the city.

“They are attacking Akros.” There was still a tremor to his voice, but Kytheon swallowed it and spoke again. This time, his voice was a mountain. “They are attacking Akros. They _dare_ to attack us.”

Hixus nodded, and his hands crackled with white lightning. “In times of great peril to the city of Akros and its people, prisoners may be instated as emergency hoplites, with the understanding that exemplary performance in service of the king will earn their freedom. Kytheon Iora, for the good of Akros, I deputize you.”

Kytheon gasped, and minor statutes arced off of him at the words. No longer a prisoner, not a hieromancer-in-training, but a hoplite. The rules were different for hoplites. The rules were _stronger_.

“Congratulations on your promotion, Kytheon Iora. Now, do your duty.”

“Yes, sir!” Kytheon snapped off a quick salute, then dashed towards the sheer wall of the courtyard. For a moment, golden chains coiled around his arms, ready to throw to the top of the wall and send him flying upwards, but he discarded that plan on instinct. Time would be lost, and time would not be measured with sand on this day, but with blood. Better to go through the wall.

“Let nothing stand in the way of the swift and proper pursuit of justice!” The aegis enveloped Kytheon, and he braced himself as he struck the wall. The solid masonry crumbled like eggshells around him, not a single step faltering as he all but melted through the wall. He took a hesitant breath, expecting stone dust to shred his lungs, but instead all that got past the aegis was good, clean air.

When Kytheon finally stumbled, it was in the moment that he breached the wall. The flash of sunlight as he emerged from the brief darkness was almost blinding, and the spasming shadows being cast by the harpies made the world seem to flash in and out of night and day. One, two, three breaths in and out until the world made sense again. So much time wasted.

“The broken shall be made whole,”he whispered, sending the law behind him with a snap of his gold-wreathed fingers. There was a rumble of stone, and the wall was as it had been. After a single glance behind him, Kytheon broke into another run.

These were not familiar streets. Knowing your way around a prison was preparing to be caught, and preparing to be caught was preparing to lose. But Kytheon was not trying to lose a patrol today. He had a direction to run. That was enough.

There was lightning on the horizon. The javelins on the outer wall of the city were flying, and they found their mark. Every time the spell struck true, a harpy fell, and there came a flash of the future. It was not enough to form a battle plan, but it was enough that the peltasts knew where to aim next, and that was enough. Or it should have been.

Harpies were slipping through the defenses. Lightning filled the sky, but only for brief instants, and in the spaces where mana flowed but did not spark, the harpies advanced. They dove down onto the streets, trying to seize the humans that could not escape their talons. Kytheon was already running, but when he saw a child’s feet leave the ground he charged.

“Kidnappers shall be put to death!” The spear of light left his hand before he held it, and tore through the harpy without mercy. The child fell, hard enough to bruise but not enough to break. Kytheon ran past them, a smile flitting across his face as their eyes met. He had to smile.

Two more harpies charged, both focused on him. Kytheon’s smile returned, and he spread his arms wide. “Come to me, invaders.” He could feel the full power of the spell. He had been waiting for this. “Come and die.”

They charged, perhaps incensed by his words or more likely enraged that he was not afraid of them. Closer, closer, and then at last, “Stay where you are and don’t do anything stupid!”

The stones of the street were cast aside, yielding to the thrust of golden chains from beneath. They curled like vipers, the open manacles barbed like fangs as they struck and entrapped their prey. Both harpies pulled taut against their chains, and brought themselves within beating distance of Kytheon. His smile vanished.

“You chose to find power in your abandon. But I abandon nothing in fighting you.” He made a circle in the dirt with the tip of his sandal, and planted his foot squarely within it. “I am controlled. And so I am stronger than you.”

He advanced in a flurry of precise, timed blows, each delivered to a key weak point. Flesh yielded, bone shattered, and the aegis pulsed. And with every step forward, Kytheon drew a new circle to stand in.

A minute, and they were dead. The chains faded into the broken street, and Kytheon turned to the circles. There were four circles, one for each ally.

“For the good of Akros, I deputize Drasus, Epikos, Zenon and Olexo as emergency hoplites. Every hoplite has the right to bear arms, and shall be armed according to their abilities. Let it be so in these, my chosen brothers.”

The world pulsed white, and then they were together again. Kytheon’s Irregulars, the Protectors of the Quarter, now rejoined their namesake, clad in shining armor and bearing weapons they had only dreamed of wielding. They stared in shock at the world, at themselves and then finally at Kytheon.

“Sir?” Zenon was the first to step forward, his knee bending as if he were about to kneel. “Is this... real?” Behind him, Epikos and Little Olexo began to follow suit, though Drasus merely stared.

“Rise, hoplites of Akros.” He could see the words set in, the reality of what this attack meant for all of them. Kytheon rolled his shoulders, and felt every ache of the Waterfall melt away under the sun. He turned to face the wall, and as the lightning flew, he knew who he was.

“Form up, Irregulars.” Kytheon Iora let the chains of law unfurl from his arms as a new wave of harpies crested the wall. “We have work to do.”


	2. The Choosing of Battles

It had begun as a bet. Most things had, in those days when Kytheon was fresh from his discharge and he only had two friends.

It had been him, Epikos and Zenon. They sat on the curb, rolling dice or bouncing rocks off of walls or gawking at the men and women who were everything they couldn’t be. Epikos would talk with the old men, scratching his chin and muttering in a mockery so sincere that they mistook it for philosophy. Zenon would make bets on anything he saw, and quite a few things he didn’t see. There were a few copper pieces between the three of them, tossed back and forth with every bet because it made them feel more rich than buying the one loaf of bread.

“What is man but a collection of wind and crumbs?” Epikos asked to nobody, hoping that this would be silly enough that the old men would finally realize his joke.

“A sorry excuse for a meal is what,” Kytheon answered, and earned a dismissive flick of the wrist for his trouble. He grinned at Epikos, flaunting the invisible prize.

“Bet you the tenth piece that this is the day they realize,” Zenon whispered. He turned the piece in question over and over in his hand, letting the glint of sunlight on the copper catch in Kytheon’s eyes.

“What makes today any more likely?” he answered, bouncing a die off the thigh of a passing horse and off the wall behind them. It bounced against his foot and landed on a six.

“That.” Zenon spun the piece on a finger, his head cocked towards Epikos and his parodic monologue. “When Kytheon Iora has good odds, the gods are indeed smiling.”

There were twelve pieces of copper. To someone who could earn and spend, they were unremarkable. But to three boys with little else in the world, each and every indent and scratch was a story. They told those stories to each other, in the cold nights to keep themselves alive. They spoke of kings and curs, the bread and meat and blood that had been paid for by these little scraps of metal, and they laughed at their own spun yarns. The idea of holding copper that had once been the small change in a bounty for a cyclops was the most exciting thing in their lives, and the most they dared to hope for.

It was, of course, the day that everything changed.

Zenon began to flip the coin, his tongue already shaping the words ‘call it’ when it happened. An explosion shook the Foreigners’ Quarter, knocking the three on their backs and sending the copper piece spinning away. As the ringing faded from his ears, Kytheon heard the screams.

The house across the street was on fire. People were stumbling out of the door, screaming in pain and trying to shed their burning clothes. There were cries for the fire brigade, and citizens took off at a run for the aqueduct. Kytheon pushed himself to his feet, and before he knew what he was doing he was moving towards the fire. Three steps closer, and his brain caught up to what his ears had realized; some of the screams were coming from inside.

“There’s still someone in there,” he gasped. The golden light swelled and burst over him, and he broke into a run. There were gasps from the onlookers and a few outstretched hands that tried to stop him, but Kytheon cast them all aside and leapt into the flame.

The heat washed over and past him like water around a stone, and the fires licked weakly at his feet. He leaped over tables and charged through the burning halls, trying to pinpoint where the screams were coming from. Then, he made his first big mistake; he breathed in.

The golden light could protect him against everything else, but the smoke that filled the house would not be held back. Kytheon stumbled as he swallowed a lungful of smoke, coughing it out just fast enough to keep breathing. Need to find them, need to get them out of here.

Another lungful, another sharp scream from another room. The smoke was thicker. Move. Had to make it to him. Sounded so afraid. So alone. Can’t call out, didn’t have the breath. Couldn’t tell him he was going to live.

Maybe that was a good thing. Couldn’t break promise if you didn’t have the strength to make it.

There’s the door. Knees weak. Smoke a little thinner here. The child is here.

“I’m here.” Cough, cough, hack, fall to knees, get back up, have to help, need to help.

“Help me!”

Trapped. Something collapsed. Some kind of statue thing, don’t ask questions, not important, he can’t lift it, you have to lift it.

“Oh no.” A moment of clarity, as the grunt of trying to lift the statue forced the smoke out of his lungs for a few precious seconds. Kytheon stared down at the statue, his eyes burning but not daring to wipe at them because if he did, then the leverage he had managed to get might give up and crush the boy. He needed to be strong enough to lift this statue, just strong enough to give the boy space to escape. But he knew from that first try, and he strained against the weight, hoping that something would shift and he wouldn’t have to finish this thought.

Kytheon was not strong enough. He knew he wasn’t strong enough. Even the sparking of the golden light could not hold back the burning in his arms, and the burning in his lungs demanded he take another breath, and the boy’s little fists hammering against the statue made a burning in his ears, and as soon as he breathed in the smoke again he was going to have to let go, and the boy was going to die, and it was all going to be his fault.

“Ah, there you are.”

Zenon?

“Epikos, grab it there, will you? Lift with your knees, not your arms. You too, Kytheon.” Blinking, breathing, hacking, coughing, hand slips for a moment but it’s okay because someone is already there, shifting the statue. Lean in, grab it, lift it. Alone, none of them could do it.

Together, unstoppable.

The statue toppled to the side. The boy was pulled free of the fire, and the three of them got out. And they lay there on the side of the street, as men and women ran to and fro with buckets of water, and breathed deeply of that sweet bouquet of air and life.

“Olexo,” the boy answered when asked his name. He would not say why he had been in the house, or why none of the adults who had stumbled out of the house were shouting his name or pulling him away from the three. He did not have to say.

“It is enough to know that you are alive.” Epikos sounded more serious as he said that, and Kytheon almost made a joke about philosophy rubbing off on his friend. But there was truth to what he said, so Kytheon held his tongue and nodded.

“Alive, yes, but by what measure?” Zenon tossed a copper piece to Olexo, and smiled at the ease with which he caught it. “Here we sit, burned and coughing and all but penniless, beggars and children all.”

“And yet we have saved a life.” There was a lingering rasp to Kytheon’s voice from the smoke, and the sound it made as he spoke surprised him and his fellows. For the moment, his voice did not match his body. That brief feeling filled him with elation. “The gods are indeed smiling.”

 

~

 

With every passing moment, the sky seemed to grow darker with wings. Sound was a distantly remembered friend to Kytheon; between the constant crackle of lightning and the skull-piercing shrieks of the harpies, he had gone deaf. It mattered not; he did not need to hear to kill.

His lips formed the shape of words, of laws that empowered him to bind and kill the beasts that surrounded him, laws that he felt rather than knew. Every gesture sent golden chains flying from his fingertips, chains which locked around the harpies and pulled taut at his slightest urging. Once the chain was secured, Kytheon would pull and the harpy would fly behind him to meet the Irregulars.

“Armed according to their abilities,” he had said. For Drasus and Zenon, that meant swords and shields, the weapons of soldiers who but for the whims of the gods could have been mighty hoplites by now. But for Epikos and Olexo, grown so strong and bold while Kytheon was hidden away in prison, that meant war-hammers big enough to break through walls with a single misplaced swing. They killed the harpies that Kytheon threw to them, as well as any that tried to dive two of the only humans who were fighting back instead of running.

Kytheon had heard many stories about how terrifying harpies were, but he was now realizing why he had never heard any tale claiming they were smart.

A blur of green near to the ground, a flash of steel and the rolling of a harpy’s head down the road. Zenon ducked back out of the road as quickly as he had come, carrying someone who had stumbled or fallen or some such reason for nearly being harpy food. He and Drasus had taken up the vital task of rescue, not so much holding the thick red line as running about like a series of red darts.

Something hit Kytheon, square in the chest. He stumbled back one, two, three steps, and focused back on what was in front of him. A harpy had attacked him, was flapping its wings in his face and letting its mouth hang wide open. It was probably screaming at him. The chain that had been winding its way around Kytheon’s arm became a blade, and he bisected the harpy with a flick of his wrist.

He began to make out the flashes of red again. They were getting closer. The peltasts must have run out of harpies in front and had to turn around. Good news, meant they were nearly past. Bad news, the harpies had started to ignore him. They were streaming past, and when he pulled them down to his level they all but flew into the hammers themselves. There was some kind of strange light pulsing through the sky, drawing the harpies in like moths to an open flame.

“The health of the hoplite must be maintained as far as is physically possible.” Kytheon could barely understand his own words as he began that sentence, but by the end of it he was able to hear again. The harpies had not stopped screaming, but with every passing second it was growing easier to bear. Somehow, the world was easier to focus on now that he could hear again, and it was easier to stand. Kytheon started to run after the harpies.

“Where are they going?” Epikos asked. Kytheon just shrugged, and kept running. The crackle and flash of lightning had stopped, though whether out of confusion or worry about damaging the city he couldn’t tell. Kytheon rounded one corner, then another, and finally found what had been drawing the harpies in.

On the steps of the Temple of Triumph, a phalanx of soldiers had assembled. The harpies dove onto their swords and spears so quickly that Kytheon doubted they even knew what they were doing. Soon enough, he spotted why; Hixus was standing at the back of the phalanx, his sword drawn and his armor shining. He was shouting something, and his every gesture sent out waves of white light. Whenever the light struck a harpy, they seemed to lose what little sense of perspective such a creature could have, and they would dive towards the phalanx.

“Let the hoplites form the first line of defense against all manner of monster.” Kytheon remembered that statute, a line from some ancient military reform written by the kind of man who thought that common sense would fall apart if nobody wrote down what it was supposed to be. Still, it was working. Hixus was compelling the harpies to all but skewer themselves on the phalanx.

“Well, that’s quite a sight.” Zenon and Drasus had returned from their errand, everyone either rescued or hiding so cleverly they may as well be. “Think we should join in?”

“No.” Kytheon turned around, regarded the towering walls. He saw the peltasts turning, saw the lightning leap from their fingers once again. “Harpies never come alone. They’re just scouts. And the army is finally here.”

The Irregulars were running back to the wall, and the further they got from the screams, the clearer they could hear another sound. It was a hammering, a pounding of flesh against wood and metal and stone. The monsters were at the door, and they were trying to get in.

Kytheon skidded to a stop in front of the gate out of Akros. It had been open for so much of his life, open to the mountains and valleys and traders and travelers. But now it was closed, and its timbers shook with a force that he had never seen before. He had heard stories of it, of course, had heard so many warnings and told jokes among his friends about which of them would get eaten first, but since the day he was thrown out of the army, he had never dreamed that he might see them in the flesh.

“Cyclops at the gate, trade will have to wait.” Zenon made the joke with the tired eagerness of a man who knew this would be the last day he could make a joke like that. Little Olexo laughed, and Kytheon smiled at hearing it.

“Well, we can’t wait. We’re needed out there.” He turned to face the Irregulars, smiled at the magnificent armor and expertly crafted weapons that they carried. They had never fought like this before, with weapons and protection and authority. They had fought with sticks and stones and the protection of Kytheon standing in front, against bullies with armor and bullies without. Even he with all his hieromancy had never prepared for a fight like this.

“Ready?”

They all nodded, and Kytheon decided to ignore the hesitation he saw in some of their faces. They all had it, he knew, it was just that some of them knew how to hide it. He turned to face the gate, and the aegis spilled out over his body.

“Let nothing stand in the way of the swift and proper pursuit of justice.” He snapped his fingers, and the gate swung open. A huge, meaty fist was the first thing through the opening, a blow that had meant to land on wood passing through unexpected air instead. Kytheon took advantage of the movement to loose a chain, winding it around the cyclops’ wrist. Next, he dove between the creature’s legs, running as far as he could before tugging hard on the chain. It went taut before he had even twitched his muscles, and the cyclops was forced to stumble back into its fellows.

Three. Three cyclopes, four mortal vigilantes and one indestructible hieromancer. Kytheon didn’t know if it was a fair fight, but he knew it was his.

“Seal the gate!” he shouted, and the hideous thud of the gate swinging shut was almost a more crushing sound than the screams of the harpies. He had no time to reflect on that, though, as a cyclops’ foot came crashing down on him. Neither the stone beneath him nor aegis around him would yield, so the foot was forced to oblige.

The cyclops gave a great howl of pain and stumbled backwards, falling down onto the ramp out of the city with a thud and a sickeningly loud crack. Kytheon smiled and turned to rejoin the fight. The Irregulars were doing a surprisingly good job without him, ducking between the monster’s blows and slashing or beating it whenever they could manage to land a hit. Still, with every passing swing they were getting worn down, and Kytheon was not about to stand back and let the Irregulars fight such a dangerous opponent without him.

Two chains, one for each hand. This time, he didn’t make the mistake of trying to use his arms to pull on magic, and just willed them to pull taut with as much force as they could. The cyclops stumbled, took a step back, and was struck on the knee by Olexo’s hammer. The monster toppled, and Kytheon narrowly avoided another unpleasant dive into cyclopean skin by dashing forward to join the Irregulars.

“Two down,” Zenon barked, twirling his sword. “One to go.”

The last cyclops advanced slowly, trying to step over its fallen comrade before attacking. Kytheon grinned and threw a chain at the monster’s leg, giving a quick yank to throw it off its balance. “Hammers, now!”

Epikos and Olexo charged forward, swinging their hammers with so much strength that Kytheon was worried they might hurt themselves. A crack from the knee that Epikos attacked, and a thud from Olexo’s target, and the cyclops fell to its knees.

“Cut him to ribbons!” Zenon and Drasus charged with just as much passion, and maybe a bit more style. Drasus struck with the brutality Kytheon expected of a man who had been itching for another prison brawl for years, hacking off as much of the monster with every swing as he could. Zenon preferred to strike with flair, adding some kind of flourish to every slash and stab. Together, they tore the cyclops to shreds, until it had nothing left to do but fall on its face.

Kytheon let out a breath, and let the aegis fade away to nothing. While the Irregulars caught their breath, the cheer rose up from the walls. Lightning shook the sky, the peltasts shouting with jubilation. “Well done,” they shouted, “hail the conquering heroes!” Kytheon smiled, and basked in the praise for a moment.

“Sir?” Zenon did not sound like the battle was over. “We were fighting monsters, right?”

Kytheon turned to his friend and raised an eyebrow. “Of course, friend. I would hardly call a cyclops or a harpy civilized company.”

Zenon chuckled a little, but his face fell as he pointed down into the valley. “So who are they?”

Kytheon turned to follow his gaze, and it was suddenly very hard to breathe. Down there in the valley, sitting on either side of a large rock, there were two men. At least, they looked like men. Vaguely man-shaped, anyway.

“Unless the temples have grossly misrepresented them, I do believe that those are the gods Heliod and Erebos.” Epikos shouldered the weight of his hammer and spat on the cyclops corpse. “And yet I hear no heavenly trumpets, and not a glimmer of starlight in the sky. What are they playing at?”

The golden figure that could only be Heliod turned to face the Irregulars, and Kytheon shuddered as those ancient eyes settled on him. Even from so far away, he could feel their judgment, could feel the weight of countless centuries behind those eyes. And then the god stretched out a hand, and beckoned.

Kytheon took a trembling step forward, but his steps grew certain when he heard the echoing scrape of the Irregulars’ sandals behind his own. They followed him into the valley, step by agonizingly slow step, until at last they stood before the gods.

Heliod was almost underwhelming in the flesh, nearly mortal at first glance. He was garbed in shimmering robes that would put kings to shame, and it was only if one could tear their gaze away from his golden countenance that they would spot the sea of stars hidden in the dark folds of his robes. His head was framed by a gleaming golden laurel, though his thick black hair was so barely illuminated that Kytheon expected to see stars between the godly locks.

On the other side of the rock sat Erebos, and one look reminded Kytheon that he was not dealing with humans. The god of death was a pale and thin mirror of a human face, framed by two impossibly smooth black horns and bearing the most horrifying eyes that Kytheon had ever gazed into. At first glance, they were mere black pits, a formless void with no light. But as he looked deeper, Kytheon saw something moving in the darkness. The flicker of flame, the dance of shadows... the haunting feeling that he had recognized that brief flash of a figure...

“Well met, Kytheon Iora.” He had expected Erebos to have a voice like the grave, a dread whisper that rang in his head. But Erebos spoke softly, like a grandfather or the sort of priest that would give you a loaf of bread and not even try to preach about it. “We were very impressed by your work today. My opponent wagered that it was impossible.”

“I made no such wager, brother.” Heliod spoke with all the gravity that could be expected of a god, his voice echoing across the valley without rising above a normal register. “I merely remarked that the strength of Akros lies in its army, and not its walls.” He looked up at the Irregulars for the first time since inviting them, and gave a brief snort. “Were I mortal, I would accuse this day of being a dream.”

“No need for such rudeness, Heliod. I am sure our guests worked very hard to prevail this day.” Erebos smiled, and turned his gaze back down to the stone between them.

Kytheon followed the god’s gaze, and saw that they were playing some kind of game on the stone. The pieces were statues of varying size, flawlessly carved from all manner of stone. He recognized Hixus, surrounded by a dwindling number of harpy figures, and smiled at the gleaming marble that had been used to make him. His gaze moved over a battlefield that was even now being swept clean, the harpies and cyclopes vanishing in puffs of dust as they met Erebos’ hand. Then Kytheon spotted another piece, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.

“Your sculptor is clearly an amateur.” His words had far more of an edge than he had ever heard uttered in temples. “Is that thing supposed to be me?”

The offending statuette had been carved with an impeccable eye for detail, capturing even the slightest upward curve of the minuscule smile on its face. It stood at the head of a group of four soldiers, each of them shaped in an unmistakable likeness of Kytheon’s Irregulars. But while his friends had been recreated without flaw, every little thing about Kytheon was almost deliberately wrong. While the length of his hair was right, it was done up in a bun rather than hanging down on his shoulders. He was holding a sword, the figure was holding a basket. He wore armor, the figure wore a dress.

“You would question the gods?” Heliod tightened his grip around a shaft of sunlight and it became a spear. Kytheon stared at the spear’s head, his eye nervously tracing the patterns of the filigree. He couldn’t tell whether it would hurt less to stare into the orb at the spear’s center or to meet Heliod’s gaze.

In the same moment as the spear materialized, there were two very distinct sounds; two swords were unsheathed, and two hammers struck the earth. “It is the nature of men to question the gods,” Epikos intoned. “Would we have fire if we had not asked why we were cold? Would you have explained the nature of the world to us if we had never asked? Would we have built temples if man never asked how to thank the gods?”

Erebos chuckled, a sound that by itself sounded altogether human but filled Kytheon’s mind with images of knives in the dark and open graves. Heliod grumbled and sat down, shuffling harpies around as Hixus advanced across the board by some magic inherent to the pieces. Kytheon took a nervous breath, and another, much faster breath as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ve got your back, sir.” Zenon spoke in a warm whisper. “The gods have nothing on Kytheon Iora.”

“I can hear you, Setessan.” Heliod tapped his fingers against the stone, leaving craters wherever he tapped.

“What of it, Bright-Eyes?” Olexo stepped forward, dragging his hammer behind him. Despite the emptiness of the threat against a god, Kytheon could have sworn he saw a flicker of concern on Heliod’s face.

“Peace, friends.” Erebos turned to the Irregulars with an audible snap of his neck, and his smile felt a little less real. “It is not yet time for gods to die.” A snort from Heliod, a smirk from Erebos. “It is well that you remarked upon the inaccuracy of the sculpt, Kytheon, for we are playing this game to determine the sculptor for our games going forward.”

Erebos let his hand float over the stone, pausing at each piece before settling on a golden figure that stood twice as tall as the Irregulars’ pieces. He picked up the piece, and Kytheon saw that it was actually a chalk-white figure clad in golden scale armor. When the figure was set in its new place, there was a rumbling from beyond the mountains.

“What was that?” Drasus asked.

“A titan,” Erebos answered as though he were reminding a child of how a river worked. “I send him out from time to time to reclaim souls who have escaped the Underworld. This time, he stumbled upon a pack of monsters and sent them running.”

“They were making a strategic retreat,” Heliod spoke up as the last of the harpies collapsed before Hixus and an advancing phalanx of soldiers, each one utterly unique in their inconsequential details. “One front lost, another gained.” He dragged a burning finger along the stone, carving out a rough outline of the city walls. “In any case, the titan is undeterred. He will pursue his prey until the very ends of the earth, and no mortal thing may stand in his way.”

“And what does that have to do with us?” Epikos asked, full of bravado and making a show of how easily he could lift his hammer. “The Returned are no enemy of ours. If it is the titan’s nature to seek them out, then he shall do it.”

Heliod smiled, and despite the warmth that was rolling off him in waves, Kytheon shivered. “I invite you to examine our board more closely, philosopher. Nature you may have no complaint with, but tactics are seldom so simple.”

The Irregulars leaned closer, examining each piece and trying to work out what Heliod meant. Then Drasus made a very frightened noise, and pointed to three gold-masked figures on the far side of the square that represented Akros.

Erebos moved the titan forward again, the clack of statuette against stone echoed by the rumbling across the mountains.

“You’re going to send it right through Akros,” Kytheon realized aloud. “You’re going to kill half the city.”

“I’m not killing anyone.” Erebos sounded so tired, as though he had had this argument a thousand times before. “The titan is killing them.”

“Then tell him not to.” Kytheon’s mind filled with laws, and his fingers crackled with magic, but he knew better than to try it. The only thing that stood a chance of working was words. “He can go around the city. We can drive the Returned to him. You don’t have to do this!”

“Gods never ‘have to’ anything, mortal. Such obligations are your domain.” Heliod was playing the Returned, manoeuvring them further beyond Akros. “Brother, explain why her plan is so foolish.”

The swords had not been sheathed. The swords trembled, fury barely contained. Kytheon tried to breathe. Important to breathe. Keep breathing.

“Kytheon Iora.” Now the words hit with the weight expected of a god’s tongue. Erebos seemed to swallow the world with the brief silence after that name, and the swords lowered by a fraction. “You must know that I have no need to spare life. All of Akros will surely come to me one day, whether by titan or by tremors of the heart. Such things are inevitable. My concern is the dead, and if the dead were to lay all the world at my titan’s feet, he would not stop before he had them. And the dead know this.”

Heliod moved one of the Returned three spaces, each click a clear emphasis of the stakes. For his part, Erebos moved his titan only one space further. This tremor was far, far closer.

“And what part are we meant to play in your merry game?” There was a naked condescension to Zenon’s voice, though the gods gave no indication that they took it as blasphemy.

“Why, you are meant to play yourselves.” Heliod stood up, and regarded Kytheon as a king might regard an ant. “You possess no weapons capable of harming the beast, and it will not bend to your petty little laws. In the interest of a fair game, I shall offer you a means of destroying the titan.” He held out his spear, and Kytheon’s jaw dropped at the realization of what was happening.

“The sculptor...”

“Well spotted.” Heliod pressed the spear into Kytheon’s hands. “Destroy the titan, and the body shall at last be matched to the soul.” There was a smile on Heliod’s face, a warm one that showed none of his arrogance and all of his compassion. Kytheon felt something in his heart, a certainty that he was going to win.

It was such an alien feeling. Victory was not something that Kytheon had ever grown accustomed to, and even when it came it was so often tempered by reality. The day that the Irregulars saved Olexo’s life, he had begun to worry about how they could live. The first time they hunted down a murderer that the guards refused to pursue, he had been terrified for the lives of his friends. Even after they brought him in, he fell asleep to thoughts about a prison escape, and knives in the dark. This overwhelming confidence did not feel like it belonged in his chest. All the same, it felt amazing.

“Kytheon, sir?” Zenon was nudging him in the shoulder, rousing him from the spiral of thought. “They’ve gone, sir.”

The gods had indeed vanished, along with every piece of their game. Over the mountains, there was another tremor. Kytheon took a deep breath, and he smelled death on the wind.

“It’s coming.” He took a step forward, and had to let the spear rest against the ground so that he didn’t fall over. Two pairs of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and waist, catching a stumble before it became a fall.

“Are you alright, sir?” Olexo looked so troubled. He looked so strong. He had spent these past ten years running, leaping, fighting for his life and the lives of others in the Quarter. Not as well-fed as Kytheon, but he had a leg up on him in one important regard.

The sun was at its peak. Kytheon would have been concluding his training by now. He had worked harder in this last hour than in the past week of training combined, and every bone in his body was telling him to put down the weapon, walk down the stairs and take his position at the Waterfall. He had been training to be a lawmage, not a Stratian. Where was he even getting the strength to stand?

“Hey, Kytheon.” Zenon was standing in front of him now, looking deep into his eyes instead of towards the mountains that surely held their opponent. “Bet you we can’t beat this titan into the ground before sunset.”

“Oh yeah?” So tired. Have to stay up. Have to stay awake. Have to stay alive, or else everyone will die. “And which piece are you betting?”

Zenon smiled, then leaned in so that the spear’s head was behind his own. Framed like that, he glowed with a radiance that the gods had not even attempted, could not hope to approach. It had been so many years since Kytheon had last looked into those eyes, and time had seen fit to heap infinite kindness upon Zenon’s beauty. In that moment, he could not have been more breathtaking. “I bet you a kiss, Kytheon Iora.”

The heart beat faster. The hand tightened on the spear. The aegis burst forth, and wrapped Kytheon in a warmth that seemed like a winter chill compared to the fire burning in his chest and in his cheeks. “I... I...”

A hand clapped on his back, and he heard a chuckle. “Right, then that’s settled. What’s the battle plan, sir?” Drasus took a few steps out towards the mountains, swinging his sword idly back and forth. Kytheon’s eyes finally noticed the deep scratches in his armor, in the armor of everyone save for him. He straightened up with the help of Zenon and the spear.

“Well, only one of us is indestructible, so right now I’d suggest you all fall back to the city.” The Irregulars formed up and lifted their weapons regardless. “This is no time for bravery, friends. If you stay here, you’re going to die.”

“And if we leave, you’re going to die.” Epikos held out a skin of water, and Kytheon seized on it like a madman. “You remember the oath, sir. The oath we swore upon the Twelve?”

Kytheon nodded. He had come up with the damn thing, after all. “For those who have turned their backs to the gods.”

Epikos took up the call. “For the lost and forgotten, the forsaken and the exiled.”

Olexo raised his voice. “For the ones without gold, without crown, without mercy or kindness.”

Drasus turned to face the group and smiled. “For the hungry and thirsty, for the beaten and bruised...”

“...And for all the rest of them,” Zenon spoke his piece, and then five voices raised as one and shouted to the mountain, “I will keep watch!”

A final tremor, and then it was among them. The titan of Erebos strode out of the shadow of the mountain, and bellowed at the tiny little sun that was waiting in the valley. It was a sound like the yawning pit of a nightmare, a sound that seemed to devour all others and itself until there was nothing but a strange, roaring silence.

The titan was a terrifying and imposing figure. Its skin was the white of sun-bleached bones, and its golden armor shone like a burnished sun. The scales of its armor were death masks, hundreds upon thousands of blank faces taken as trophies from the reclaimed dead. With every slight movement, the masks clattered and rang against each other, and it almost sounded like music. The flail, however, did not sound like music. The flail swung back and forth in the titan’s hand, churning up the air like water in a pot rolling down a hill. Then, it swung upward. Before Kytheon even realized it, he was running towards the titan.

“Fall back!” he shouted, and the flail began to fall downward. The titan’s enormous blank eyes twitched, a movement that Kytheon hated being able to see so clearly, and it adjusted its grip on the flail’s handle. It swung down hard, the flail’s head blurring into indistinct blackness and a mighty windstorm pinning Kytheon to the ground. The aegis glowed, and in a last panicked thought before the impact, Kytheon pointed the spear upwards.

Flail struck spear, and sunlight split metal with a mighty thunderclap. The twin mountains of metal slammed down on either side of Kytheon, and he felt as though he had been snapped up in the jaws of some hideous dragon. Before the titan had time to react, Kytheon took a decisive step forward and swung with the spear, cleaving through the flail’s chain with the ease of a scythe through grass. The beast was disarmed, and the Irregulars had an opening.

“Hammers to the heels!” The Irregulars charged, Epikos and Olexo each choosing a foot and smashing their hammers into the titan’s ankles. There was a scream of pain from on high, one that made Kytheon’s skull rattle. The titan took one, two thunderous steps back, its knees buckled and Kytheon stared into its pale eyes. He could almost hear Erebos’ whip uncoiling.

Suddenly, he had an idea. It was not the sort of idea that anyone with a formal military education would have ever considered, and Kytheon realized that. But as he adjusted his grip on the spear and prepared to throw it, he thought back to all the tales of heroes that he had heard in his life. He remembered the insane, almost impossible things that he had heard, and remembered that none of them had ever been trained hoplites either. And he took comfort in that, and threw the spear at the titan’s head as hard as he could.

The spear struck true, sinking into the titan’s head with a speed and force that filled Kytheon with pride. The titan reeled back, raising its hand to try and clutch the spear, but Kytheon was not done yet. He conjured a chain, and flung it towards the handle of the spear. The links of light wound their way around the sunlit relic, and when the chain pulled taut, it sent Kytheon flying into the sky.

This was part of the plan.

“Bring it down!” he shouted as he flew through the air, the titan’s face becoming larger and larger until it may as well have been his entire world. His sandals crunched into the creature’s face, and Kytheon could have sworn that skin flaked off at his touch. There was no time to observe such facts, though, because the Irregulars were charging. Swords and hammers were slashing and smashing at the few exposed pieces of the titan’s skin that they could reach. It wasn’t much, but it was pain.

Pain was not normally an effective weapon against monsters. This was a fact that passed even to the commoners who would never be called on to fight such things, that nothing less than a killing blow would matter to the horrors of the wild. But this titan was a mighty servant of Erebos, a creature that had only ever understood life and death as equal absolutes with no middle ground. It screamed, a sound that tore at Kytheon’s sanity and made the world bleed away around him. The air grew dark, and it sparkled with stars, and it felt as though he were staring into the eyes of a god.

“No. Not a god. Only his puppet.” Kytheon closed his hands around the spear and drove it deeper, cracking the titan’s skull and earning another scream that dragged enormous claws across his thoughts. It must have been nearly dead by now.

The titan took another step forward.

Then another. And another. And another. The Irregulars were shouting, and hopefully running.

 _Fight or flight_ , Kytheon realized as he held on for dear life. The titan had been chasing Returned for who knew how many years, and it had probably seen them trying to run when it hurt them. Now, it was reacting to pain in the only way it could understand.

The worst part, Kytheon realized as he conjured new chains to keep himself anchored, was that while the titan clearly understood the concept of running, it did not fully understand the concept of running _away_. It was still running towards the Returned. It was still heading towards Akros.

Kytheon stared into the titan’s milky eyes, eyes so blank that he could not imagine that the titan truly understood that was happening to it. He felt such hatred welling up inside his heart. “They did not send you to fetch a handful of lost souls, did they? No, they sent you as a test. And a test of what?”

He drew out the spear, and drove it into the titan’s right eye. There was a gout of blood, some dark and inky thing that felt more like oil than anything that came out of a living thing. Another howl, but when the aegis welled up this time it protected his ears as well.

“That won’t work again. Every time something hurts me, that only teaches me how to stop it. I am a shield, and you are nothing but the hammer in the forge. Do you understand me?”

Draw it out. Drive it back in. Make it scream, make it bleed, make it fear. Teach it what all those lonely nights felt like, teach it what it was like to look into the eyes of a god and feel unworthy, to feel lesser, like an ant to be brushed aside. Show it that you are better, that you will survive to see another day and that it never will.

“You are nothing before me, titan! Nothing! No! Thing!”

One more damned thrust of that shard of the sun, this pale imitation of the sun god’s pride. Kytheon felt as though he could have thrown the spear aside, that he could grind the titan down to nothing with only his fists and his fury. He needed to kill this thing, or everything he had worked for, everything that Hixus had told him he would defend one day, every urchin he had ever fed and every life he had ever spared, would all be for nothing.

At last, the titan stopped. Its desperate sprint became a jog, became a lurch, and then it fell to its knees. While there was no pupil in those giant eyes, eyes that Kytheon could barely see under the lakes of blood that he had brought forth, he could see them roll back into the beast’s head. The whole massive thing went slack, and the titan fell forward.

Kytheon grinned to himself, and gathered the aegis. He pulled the spear loose, dismissed his chains, and fell to earth.

The titan struck the earth first, of course. To compare it to thunder would have been like comparing the crash of an ocean wave to the splash of a bucket’s worth of water, so all-encompassing and near-deafening it was. Kytheon could have sworn that he felt the impact, felt it kick him back into the air before he continued to fall. But fall he did, and finally he landed.

The shock of landing, of hearing the earth crack around him and feeling only a shudder of stopping instead of the cracking of bones, was an amazing feeling. Kytheon felt strong then, felt like he was truly something more than just a man.

Then he stood up, and any illusion or imagining of his strength was made glorious reality.

There before Kytheon Iora lay the fruits of his labors. The titan of Erebos, this all-powerful errand-runner, had fallen at his knees, had been laid low by his attacks. He could hear, just beyond the titan’s massive body, the cries of his Irregulars. They were not yet certain that he lived, did not know that while two had fallen, only one had risen up again.

The golden armor of the titan began to hiss and bubble, melting off of its body and running into the earth like rainwater. Beneath the molten gold, the titan itself was drying up and blowing away in the faint noon breeze, that mass of muscle and flesh and bone rendered to little more than ash by the blows from Heliod’s spear.

At last, the titan was blown away in its entirety, and the Irregulars stood there, staring at Kytheon like he had stepped out of thin air garlanded in stars. He grinned, and charged towards them, the spear slipping from his fingers before he collided with Zenon. The other Irregulars crowded around him too, shaking outstretched hands or clapping him on the back, but Zenon was content to simply hold him. And for his part, Kytheon was glad to be held.

“Victory, Kytheon. Victory, pure and simple.” He felt those arms wrap around him, felt Zenon pull him close and laugh, laugh so loud and hard and in that exhausted way of men who were not sure if they would make it through the day. Kytheon laughed too, laughed and breathed and rested his head against Zenon’s chest. There was a heartbeat, so loud that it could have drowned out all the harpies of the world.

It had started with a bet. They had gone to fight the titan, but had started by making a bet.

Zenon seemed to remember just as Kytheon did, drawing back just far enough that they could look each other in the eye without having to part. He smiled, and Kytheon felt his face burn with a blush.

Men had looked at him before, of course, and he knew all too well what thoughts were usually going through their heads when they were looking at him. But Zenon was not looking at him the way that Anathasios had, that Eocles had, or even the way that Drasus sometimes looked at him. This was no simple lust or base desire, but a deep respect and a fiery passion. Looking into those eyes, Kytheon felt certain that Zenon was seeing the person he was, and not merely what he appeared to be.

“Kytheon,” he said, as if to assure him that that was the name he thought of as he held him, “I believe I made a wager with you, not too many minutes ago.” He chuckled to himself before continuing, “if I’m honest, I thought it would take longer for us to get here.” There was a blush to Zenon’s cheeks, which almost seemed unbelievable to Kytheon. He had never known Zenon to be nervous about anything, least of all love.

“What can I say?” Kytheon shrugged and gave his most confident grin, trying to keep from stumbling over his words. “I’m good at what I do.”

“You’re better than good,” Zenon assured him. “You’re the best.” Then he leaned in, and in that moment Kytheon’s first thought was that Zenon had gotten so much taller while he was in prison, and his second thought was that he was about to have his first kiss.

Their lips touched, and it felt as though the world fell from Kytheon’s shoulders. Every cold and lonesome night, every leering stare, every word of denial or accusation of insanity seemed to be naught but grains of sand on a distant beach now. Kytheon pressed himself against Zenon in every way he could, and his heart swelled at the indescribable joy of Zenon pushing back. To feel wanted, no, more than that, to feel loved, and not in the way of companionship or mentorship but true and earnest _agape_ , was something that Kytheon had scarcely dared to dream of for most of his life, and yet here it was.

Kytheon started to cry, the deep and heaving breaths of someone who has choked back every tear they shed for years. Zenon squeezed him close, and then began to speak.

“Knowest thou this, my dearest Kytheon, / That of all thou art, first and foremost thou / Art loved.” He spoke in the form of ancient poetry, the way that orators in the city square would recite the Theriad. These were the words of lovers, of kings, of heroes, and Zenon was speaking them for his sake. The tears kept flowing, but Kytheon smiled through them and kissed Zenon’s chin, urging him to continue.

“Thy soul far outshines thy false form, / And no matter to that form, for I can / Do naught but love regardless of thy frame.” Zenon took Kytheon’s right hand in his, and held them against his heart. “Stake all that I am against this, my love, / Still shall I prove true, and thus, a victor.”

Kytheon must have been blushing red as the forges of Purphoros, but far from feeling tongue-tied, he felt compelled to answer Zenon’s words in kind. He began stammering, but Zenon’s smile and the quiet encouragement of the other Irregulars lent a new strength to his words.

“In faith, thy words invite my heart to beat / A mighty and raucous drum to echo / All across the Kolophon. Thou art mine, / And myself I pledge as thine to match bets.” Kytheon stood up on his tip-toes to steal another kiss, then soldiered on. “That there might be so glorious a day / To shine upon my face when love’s spoken / I had scarcely dared to dream. Dear Zenon, / Would that I could carry thee up these stairs.”

He looked up at the ramp that led back into Akros, and felt a trembling in his heart and arms. He wanted so badly to carry Zenon, to be the conquering hero returned in every sense of the old tales, but even if he had not fought the toughest battle of his life that day, it would have been impossible. There was also a part of him that wanted so badly to be carried by Zenon, but was afraid of what the people would say if they saw him in that position. The words wanted to stay, but Zenon’s hand on his shoulder bid them leap out of his throat.

“I fear, if carried I cross that threshold, / They shall see only that damnable girl.” The urge was to bury his face in Zenon’s chest, but then he felt a hand under his chin, lifting him up to look his beloved in the eye.

“But lookest thou, the gate’s guarded for thee.” Kytheon followed Zenon’s eyeline, and saw that the gate had opened. And there, before all the crowds and hoplites, stood Hixus, his armor unmarred by the slightest scratch. He smiled, and even from the bottom of the ramp Kytheon could feel its full beneficence.

“And he will go before us, telling them / Of thy truest and heroic nature. / None shall dare speak out ‘gainst that great warden.”

As if to prove Zenon right, Hixus spoke. His voice was amplified by magic so that it carried over all the crowd, but from the look in his eyes it mattered far more that Kytheon would hear him. “Three cheers for Kytheon Iora!”

And they cheered. Oh, how they cheered. It was a sound of utmost joy, an anthem of those happy to be alive. Words like ‘thank you’ were being screamed down to Kytheon, shouted so loud that throats would be sore for hundreds of years after this day. And then, as if that moment could not be better, they began to chant.

“Ky-the-on, Ky-the-on, Ky-the-on!” If the cheers had been a wave, then the chant was an entire ocean crashing down the ramp all at once. The Irregulars were crowding around him, laughing and cheering and lifting him up on their shoulders and spinning him around while he was all but stricken blind and deaf by the exultation.

“Kytheon, Kytheon, he’s our man, and he did what no-one else can!” Drasus and Olexo and Epikos looked so happy and proud for him, and if there were words for the look in Zenon’s eyes than Kytheon had never learned them. Another kiss, and something impossible: The chant doubled, no, tripled in volume.

“They’re saying my name,” he whispered between kisses in utter disbelief. “They’re saying my _name_ , my real and actual name.”

“The day has finally come,” Zenon answered, pulling Kytheon off his friends’ shoulders and down onto the hard earth, which may as well have been eagle’s down for how Kytheon felt as he lay down with Zenon crouching over him. “Today at last, you are everything you were born to be. You are Kytheon Iora, and whoever you were before today is dead.”

 

And then the sky opened, and Heliod spoke. He spoke with an immeasurable warmth and infinite kindness, the absolute embodiment of every soft voice that Kytheon had wanted to be there to comfort him after the nightmares. But none of that mattered, because when he spoke, he spoke the name.

“Well done, Kythea.”

Something

just

 _broke_.

“That is not my name,” Kytheon growled, rising from the earth and pushing Zenon away. “That is not my name,” he said again, louder this time, pushing past the Irregulars, searching for his spear. Its light had dulled in being dropped, as though it were the sun hiding behind a cloud. But when his hand closed around its shaft, the clouds parted and the sun shone with its full might.

“What’s in a name?” Heliod asked, and the worst part was that he did not sound condescending. If anything, the god of the sun sounded confused. “It is the actions of a hero that matter, not the names they wear. That which we call a rose-”

“The flowers choose nothing!” The words of Hixus pounded in Kytheon’s memory, though he dared not turn to see how Hixus was reacting to this. “But mortals can choose, gods can choose!” Kytheon beat his fist against his chest, and raised his spear so that its blade was level with Heliod’s impossibly large face. “And I, I have chosen! My name is Kytheon Iora, and I am a man!”

He threw the spear, threw it with all the force he could muster and screamed so loud that it almost drowned out the furious pounding of his heart. It shot from his hand like a lightning javelin, blasted through the air at speeds that the human eye could not follow. The weapon seemed to grow larger as it travelled, going from a spear-thin shaft of light to a towering pillar of incandescence. For a blessed moment, Kytheon believed that the spear would strike true.

Then Heliod’s hand moved, and the light became a spear once again. He twirled it in his hand, and the Sun itself now shone from its head. Heliod fixed Kytheon with a stare, and fear suddenly seemed like a very small word indeed.

“You believe you are a man? Then die like one.”

Three things happened, in the time it took Heliod to draw his arm back and hurl the Sun Spear at Kytheon Iora.

The first was that all those assembled cried out in protest and Hixus stretched out his hands, his lips already shaping the words of a law about the will of the people.

The second was that Erebos stepped out of Heliod’s shadow, his whip already uncoiling. If anyone had deemed to look at him, they might have guessed that he was not aiming at Kytheon.

The third was that Kytheon’s arms shot out and touched the outstretched hands of the Irregulars, lingering for an extra second on Zenon. There was no time for a last kiss.

There were words to say.

“In times of greatest emergency, it is imperative that the citizens be protected and kept as far away from the danger as possible.” The magic surged, and swelled around his friends. As the spear began to fill the space between god and man, the Irregulars vanished in a flash of light that was just mellow enough for Kytheon to look into their eyes one last time.

In the moment before Zenon was gone forever, he said three words, the same three that Kytheon was saying in that same moment. “I love you.” And then the light took him, and he was safe. They were all safe.

Now, Kytheon Iora stood alone. Had he enough time to count, he would have known that he had one second left before impact. He straightened his back, squared his hips, and let the aegis spill over him. Whatever happened now, he was ready.

The spear struck him clean in the chest, but it did not pierce. Instead, it pushed. Kytheon skidded across the earth, then felt it caving in around him. The spear sent him barrelling down a tunnel until even the light from the spear could not be seen, and then he was pushed past the limits of darkness and into the starry skies of Nyx itself. Finally, Kytheon struck something that would not give, reality itself, and the spear finally began to push hard enough to hurt. But as Kytheon felt a rib crack, he felt something else. He felt a spark.

And then reality gave way, and Kytheon was beyond.

 

~

 

When he awoke, Kytheon was afraid to open his eyes. What would he see when he opened them? The darkness of the Underworld, or perhaps the innumerable stars of Nyx? Or would he see nothing but the inside of a golden mask, and the only thing holding his memories in place was the fact that he didn’t know he was dead yet?

Then he felt a hot blast of air against his face, and an impatient huff that could not have been human. Details about the world around him began to leak past Kytheon’s despair. He was lying on soft, untamed earth, and grassy earth at that. Wherever he was, it was no part of Akros that he had ever been to. The air was milder here too, and the sun felt so far away, though that may have just been from his encounter with the spear.

Another noise, from the same source. Right. Focus. Not human, but he was still in one piece, so not a monster. Horse, maybe?

“We know you aren’t dead.” A woman’s voice, used to orders being obeyed. Cavalry, then? Definitely a horse. Very unfamiliar accent, further afield than even Setessa, and she at least believed he wasn’t dead. These answers were only birthing more questions, and Kytheon felt as though he was only a few seconds away from an inquisitive prod with a sword.

He opened his eyes, and nothing made sense anymore. The beast that was sniffing at him was not a horse at all, but some kind of enormous lion. More perplexing than the lion’s size or its docile nature, though, was its attire. The lion wore barding, and someone sat astride it as though it were just another mount.

The someone was a woman, presumably the one who had spoken. She sat straight and proud in her saddle, with all the decorum of a queen but all of the subtle clues of combat prowess that he would expect in a hoplite. She was dressed in a robe of purest white and a hood made of tiny interlocked chains. And from every single place where they could be affixed, she was festooned with intricately detailed discs of gold. Kytheon could scarcely imagine what kind of position could lead to such wealth, and what kind of woman would flaunt such wealth astride a war-beast.

“Who are you, stranger?” A flash of steel, and the woman had levelled a sword against him. There was a ringing of other such sounds, and Kytheon looked around. He was surrounded, at least ten warriors only slightly less extravagantly dressed than the woman who was doing the talking. Had Heliod flung him onto the mercy of some hunting party of far-away nobles?

“My name is,” Kytheon had tried to sit up, and fell back to the ground retching. His ribs ached, and he was trying very hard not to think about how it felt like something was broken. “Kytheon Iora,” he managed to choke out.

The woman raised an eyebrow at this, as though she had not recognized it as a name. Then she spoke in her strange accent, sounding out Kytheon’s words as though he had failed his words and she were deciphering his true meaning. “Pardon, did you say Gideon Jura?”

There was an instinct to correct her, but Kytheon wondered at the way she had said it. Gideon sounded like it was a name, but she sounded as though she thought it were not the right name. An ache in his chest again, and a suspicion began to form. Kytheon tried to push himself up again, but now his arms were all but refusing to lift. There was no space for rage here. “Is Gideon a man’s name?” he asked, and winced at the note of desperation that crept into his words.

The woman’s expression changed. Where before it had been nothing but hard lines and inquisition, now it seemed almost sympathetic. “Yes. Gideon is very much a name of men.”

That look in her eyes was strange; she had recognized what he was, surely, but she had required no explanation, did not comment on the strangeness of it? Kytheon turned to take in the other warriors and they seemed on an equal level. One of them, a creature with the shape of a man but the form of an eagle, clutched a hand to its chest in what seemed like a gesture of friendship. While they had not put away their swords, they had lowered them.

Something broken inside Kytheon dared to dream that it might heal. Was he somewhere... where they understood?

“Then yes, you may call me Gideon.” A brief smile on the woman’s face, and then she seemed to remember that she was interrogating someone. She raised her sword again.

“Where do you come from, Gideon Jura? How did you come to be here, three days’ journey up the Pilgrim’s Road with such injuries and no armor?” There was a careful note of concern in that last observation, and he lifted a hand to his mouth. Wet, and not with drool. Not good.

“I wish I could tell you.” Swords raised, and he tried to raise a hand to ward them off. “No, I don’t mean I’m a spy, I mean I have no concept of where I am or how I got here. I come from a land called Akros, a land of mountains and red earth and... hideous monsters. I do not know how I came here, but I beg of you, please do not tell Heliod that I am still alive.”

The warriors began to murmur amidst each other, full of questions from his best attempt at an answer. He heard all sorts of strange questions, questions that made his head swim with how lost he must be.

“Where is Akros? Have you ever heard of it?”

“Who is this Heliod? Why does he think we would know such a man?”

“What in Asha’s name is a mountain?”

He had a question of his own, though. “Please, where am I? What has happened to me?”

The woman who seemed to be the leader sheathed her sword, and swung down from her lion. “You are on the Pilgrim’s Road, an important trade route and pilgrimage through the nation of Valeron.” Oddly, she seemed to smile at his confusion. “I do not doubt that you have many questions, Gideon, but there will be time to answer those later. Judging by your garb, you cannot be a Jhessian spy unless you are truly incompetent, so either way we have nothing to fear from you.” She gestured to someone with a jangling of her gold. “Heal him. He will ride with me.”

The bird-man approached him, and a golden light spilled from his talons. There was a shock of great pain through his chest, and broken ribs were made as new.

“Such magic...” he whispered in absolute awe, and the bird-man made a tiny laughing sound, as if to say “you haven’t seen anything yet”.

“Can you walk, Gideon?”

Gideon... yes, that would be his name. A new name for a new world, for what else could this be? He rose uneasily to his feet, and needed help to climb aboard the lion. The woman smiled at him.

“Sorry for the rocky start. You may call me Moukir, my friend. I am a captain of the Knights of the Pilgrim’s Road.”

“Knight?” Gideon knew what night was, but he had to assume that they were talking about something different. “What’s a knight?”

Moukir laughed, and flicked her lion’s reins to set it moving. There was a clip-clop sound like the hooves of a horse, and Gideon looked down in shock to see that the lion had hooves instead of paws. _One thing at a time_ , he thought to himself.

“A knight, Gideon, is a shield for the meek against the cruel. A knight is a protector of those who cannot protect themselves. That is what we are, Gideon. It is, perhaps, what you might be.”

Gideon nodded, understandably swamped by everything that was happening. “Yes. Yes, I think I would very much like to be a knight.”

The Knights of the Pilgrim’s Road rode on for several hours, with Gideon telling as much of his life story as he cared to tell and asking as many questions as the knights cared to answer. At some point along the ride he noticed Moukir’s green cloak, and the fog of injury cleared and he wept at the thought of Zenon. The knights comforted him, but it was not until the sun was beginning to set that Gideon was able to staunch his tears and ask where they were going.

“We are going to a place where we can begin your healing,” Moukir declared, and there was a strange but very noticeable change in the mood of the knights. Whereas moments ago they had been cheerfully recounting their own exploits to Gideon, now they were somber and dignified.

Gideon was confused. “But my ribs are fine. From what I’ve been told of your magic, I will not even have a scratch on me. What other healing could I want?”

“This is not a wound that scars, but it is a wound you have carried all your life.” The bird-man, which Gideon had learned was aven by species and Kaeder by name, spoke with absolute dignity. “The imperfect sculpt.”

There was a sinking feeling in Gideon’s stomach. “Oh.”

“It is a great tragedy to our people, to be sure. The stuff from which we are all shaped from life to life is a flawed material, and the sculptor is sometimes opposed to the soul. But this is not a curse to be borne in shame, as it was in Akros.”

“It’s not?” Gideon had not asked any questions about these things yet, and the idea that he was not an aberration or had somehow displeased the gods before even being born was so alien to him that he scarcely believed what he was hearing.

“No. The angels have both the power and the will to correct such errors. It is a complex process, but I assure you, Gideon, it works.” Moukir reached behind her to offer Gideon a hand to hold, and he seized upon it.

Could it be true? They couldn’t possibly be lying, could they? What had he ever done to deserve such honors?

He asked himself these questions for an hour more, until at last they arrived at a pearl-white obelisk. In the growing shadow of that pillar, he saw an angel. It was beyond beautiful, surrounded by a halo of the golden discs that he had learned were called sigils. When it spotted them, it smiled, and Gideon could _feel_ the smile.

Introductions passed in a blur, and the ceremony itself was all but incomprehensible from Gideon’s point of view. All he knew was that he was on his knees before an angel, and that he was going to get his real body.

Then a hand touched his forehead, and something surged through him. He felt bones shift, muscles swell, and things he had no name for twist in ways he didn’t want to imagine right now. It wasn’t complete, he could tell that much by breathing, but it was a step. A step he had never thought he could take, but damn if he wasn’t going to walk down this entire road.

“Arise,” spake the angel, spreading its wings wide and letting a holy light spill forth from it. The sun was setting, and so the entire world was bathed in an exquisite crimson. “Thou hast been anointed by the light of the Amesha. Go forth and live thy life without fear, for in all things art thou bound for victory.”

Gideon rose to his feet, and stood tall in the setting sun of Valeron. The angel kissed his forehead, and he felt another surge of magic.

“Now speak, champion. Speak, knight of Bant, hero of Bant, _man_ of Bant. Speak the name that thou hast chosen, not the name thou hast bore in such long suffering.”

Gideon grinned, and squared his shoulders. Everyone here was without a doubt on his side. For the first time in his life, he could say his name without even the slightest fear of retribution. How fortunate, then, that he had been able to choose a new name on this very day.

“My name is Gideon Jura, and at last I have begun to live.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that concludes the origin story of Gideon Jura! Up next, a trip to scenic Vryn where we explore the beginnings of everyone's favorite telepath, Jace Beleren!
> 
> A Distant Prologue is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
> 
> You can find me at goblins-choose-to-live.tumblr.com, where you can feel free to shoot me all manner of questions about this insane project.


	3. The Sphinx's Student

The world of the classroom was noise and disorder, the scratching of pens and the shuffle of papers and the stifled mutterings of idiots who could only think with their mouths. Every single sound felt crucial, every second felt thin and stretched to breaking point. They were taking a test, and Jace Beleren could feel everyone’s anxiety and worry and frustration all at the same time. If he didn’t focus on something, he would start to hear their thoughts. Feeling them was bad enough, but he hated to hear them and understand them.

 _Why are they all so loud?_ , he thought. _Why won’t they shut up?_

Focus, then. Focus on the paper. Please, just focus on the paper. Lift the pencil, focusing on the pencil, you’re supposed to be focusing on the paper, why are you holding the pen, have to hold the pencil to write on the paper, why are you writing on the paper we’re just supposed to be focusing on it three plus seventeen equals carry the one I think the equation is lying to us this ring isn’t a perfect circle if I just keep writing until there’s no more space maybe i’ll be able to leave I want to go home I want to gohomiwanttogohomeiwanttogohomehomehomehomehomehomehomehome

“Dammit!” Twenty fists slammed their pencils down in frustration, but nineteen of them picked them right back up and went back to what they were doing. They couldn’t tell why they had done that. Sure, they were frustrated, but I’m almost certain I’ve got this equation right…

Back in his own head, Jace had an idea. It was a good idea, he was sure. He tightened his grip on the pencil, lifted it up, and very carefully wrote down his name at the top of the test. He had to stop three times because his test kept bleeding away into someone else’s test, with the name already filled out and a different name too, and in a different hand. But once he got the name down, he just needed the answers.

They all had different answers. Different symbols were in different places, different numbers, and some of them didn’t even show their work so he could barely even tell how they had reached these solutions. What to do now? Take a gamble and pick one classmate to copy from? What if he drifted to another one mid-question? They could all be wrong. They couldn’t all be right. Even the best of them had probably made a mistake somewhere, and maybe the only right answer on one person’s test was the only wrong one on another. All Jace knew was that, for all the studying he had done last night, he had no chance of getting this test right.

But if I’m the most unprepared, he thought, then who’s the most prepared?

The obvious answer, the only answer. The teacher.

Missus Vacota had a sample paper in front of her. She was an expert mana regulator, and the only reason that she was teaching this class was because she wasn’t fast enough to keep up with the rings any more. She never shut up about that, or about how she still learned all the new stuff just in case an extra hand was ever needed on the rings.

She pulled the paper towards herself, and began to fill out the answers. _Just a challenge_ , Jace found himself whispering in her mind. _Have to keep on your toes_. And as her hand sketched out the complex mana equations that Jace only barely recognized, his own hand followed perfectly. She knew the formulas, and she was even nice enough to show her work. And when her pencil clicked down onto the desk, Jace stepped away.

Dizzy now, head swimming. Something tried to come up, and Jace pushed it down as best he could. Left his pencil where it was, picked up the paper. Was this her handwriting? No, it was his. Good. Walk to the front of the class, don’t look at them, don’t look _through_ them, they’re all looking, Missus Vacota is looking, set the paper down on the desk.

“Finished already, Beleren?” _How can he be finished? This is all trick questions._ Her eyes started to scan the paper, checked the sums against her own practice sheet, and Jace wasn’t sure whether to hold his breath or run away.

“Yes, Missus Vacota. May I leave?”

Questions. So many questions bubbling up in her brain, but she was pushing them down. Or was he pushing them down? Hard to tell. “Yes, Beleren. You may leave.”

He stumbled out of class, and something so far in the back of his mind that he knew it was behind him wove a spell. Simple spell, easy to teach to anyone, she had a crush on the woman who taught her this one, _focus_. An illusion with a message, to Gav or Ranna Beleren, whoever it found first. Jace barely had time to think about how bad that might be for him before the door slammed shut behind him, and he fell down and retched.

He had been inside her brain. He’d done everything she had done, held himself the way she had, and his mind kept drifting to her memories. He scrambled up the stairs, started running in the hope that he was only remembering her life because she was right there. Then he spotted her illusion, ghostly blue and scrambling up the side of the ring.

 _Catch it_ , spoke a primal impulse that could have been his or could have been hers or might have even been the thought of an owl that had just taken flight. Whoever’s thought it was, Jace followed it, and he kept running. Up one flight of stairs, he had gained on it. Another flight, tripped on a step and the illusion gained. The delay was enough, and it kept accelerating. It was going to reach his parents.

 _So snuff it out_ , went the thought, and Jace slowed down by a step or two, enough that the illusion disappeared behind a house for a moment. If he could reach out and counter the illusion, then the message would never reach his parents. He could tell them first, get them to understand where he was coming from.

But if he got to them first, and told them the whole story, then they would ask why there hadn’t been a message from the school. And if he didn’t tell them the whole story, then he would be lying to them. Jace did not like to lie to his parents.

He slowed to a walk, and started to climb the stairs at his usual pace. The illusion got faster and faster until it was too high up for him to make it out. Instead, Jace focused on walking.

Four flights up. Nineteen to go.

 

~

 

“I’m home!”

For all that today had been a disorienting mess and he was almost certain to get in trouble, Jace could never stifle a smile when he came home after school. There were no bullies here, no tests that seemed impossible, and at worst there were only ever two other people to get his thoughts confused with. Here, there was warmth and comfort and good food. Home was the best place on Silmot’s Crossing, hell, the best place in the world to Jace.

The door opened to a humble house, to be sure, but a good house. There was space enough for a kitchen, and a table close enough to the oven that one could bask in its heat when winter rolled over, but far enough away that lunch didn’t get baked a second time during summer. Behind the kitchen there were two rooms, and the walls were thick enough that they really did count as separate. Even with as few friends as he had, Jace had visited other houses enough to know that he had it alright.

His father was sitting at the table, and he looked up with a weak smile. Jace could feel a flash of worry, but that was all he felt. It was easier to keep to his own head here, as though being more comfortable with the minds around him made him happier with his own. And worry wasn’t the worst thing for him to feel coming off his father.

Another way that he had it better than some of his classmates, Jace knew.

“They sent a message. The school, I mean.” Gav Beleren was not a man used to talking about much else besides mana equations, and he only ever talked about those with men and women who knew enough about them that not many words were needed. In everything else, he had a habit of clarifying obvious statements, just in case they weren’t obvious. It could get irritating, but it was only being spoken in one voice, so Jace never really minded much.

“I know. I saw the messenger.” Jace set his pack down by the door, and advanced towards the table. He couldn’t yet tell if he was supposed to sit down or stay standing.

“Didn’t tire yourself out too hard trying to beat it home, I hope?” This smile was a bit stronger, and Jace felt warmer. He wondered how other kids made it through talking to their parents, not able to feel the fondness in the air.

“It was going to beat me either way. No point in coming home tired.”

“As if I’d make you do chores after a stunt like that.” His father seemed to suddenly realize that Jace was still standing, and snapped his fingers at the chair opposite him. “Come on, boy, take a seat.” Jace did as he was told, but was a little surprised when his father rose from his own chair. “So, what do you think happened today, son?”

“I… did something wrong?”

His father raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you think? Or is it what your teacher thought?”

“I didn’t check if she thought it was wrong. I know they were all trick questions, though. I wasn’t supposed to know the answers.”

“And did you know the answers? Or did she know them?” His father had moved over to the cabinet that sat against the wall, where they kept the few curios that a family like theirs could own.

“I… she knew them.” Jace turned away from his father, and started to examine the grain of the table. “And I copied them down from her. So… was that wrong?”

“I don’t know,” came the answer. “It ain’t something I was ever taught, but then, I didn’t get school like you did.” Gav laughed to himself, remembering how he had learned everything he knew on the job. He remembered working hard, hoping he’d earn enough for school, back when you had to pay for school...

Jace realized what he was doing, and focused back on the table.

“Does it hurt?” That was an unexpected question. “When you look in my head, does it hurt? Is that why you never do it for more than a few seconds?”

“I’m sorry,” Jace blurted out. That was the wrong thing to say. His father felt hurt by those words, an impulse to comfort tempered by a shock of fear. “I… no, it doesn’t hurt. I just, I don’t think I’m supposed to do it, is all, and I don’t think I should do it, especially if it means cheating on tests.”

“So quick to teach yourself,” his father muttered, half-proud and half-frustrated. “If this were the kind of house where naughty kids got the belt, you’d be fetching my spare one from my room already, wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t know.” Jace wanted the answer to be no, but he had called himself stupid and rude and a bad person for looking in people’s minds often enough to have doubts about that. Maybe his father was right.

“Well, you shouldn’t. Get the belt, I mean. You know, I always say education is gonna be your way out of here, but maybe we’ve been looking at that the wrong way. Maybe you’ll get out of here with that neat trick of yours, not that same old schooling that all the rest of them get. Your classmates, I mean.” He knelt down, slowly and with a muttered curse about his bad leg, and opened the cabinet.

“How is reading people’s thoughts going to get me a better life? The only folks that I can read around here are ringers.”

That made his father laugh, and what a warm and hearty laugh it was. He walked back over to the table, and Jace looked up to see that wide smile. “We’ll ask your mother about that when she gets home. In the meantime, what do you say to a game of empire?”

Empire wasn’t the proper name of the game, of course. The old box that his father was taking the pieces out of was a simple thing of lacquered wood, bearing nothing except the family name. Barely even a curio in the Core States, but to a ringer, this thing was a precious fortune. Jace didn’t know what kind of box the pieces had first come in, and he had never managed to be good enough friends with anyone else to find out if they owned the game, or what they called it. But empire seemed like a good name for a game his father always likened to two war commanders facing off, so empire was what they called it.

“You be blue, and I’ll take white.” Gav had always played white, ever since he learned the game from his father. Old Berrim Beleren had always played blue, because he loved the colors of the mana pulsing through the rings so much. And after what happened, it was hard to even hold something of that color in his hands and not…

His father had started crying. It wasn’t much, just a single tear rolling down his cheek, but it was enough for both of them to notice. Jace reached across the table, and began to say “I’m sorry”, but his father waved him away.

“No need to apologize, son. It’s… it’s a good memory.” He wiped away the tear and sat down, but more tears threatened to come. “You, you always seem to remember him so much more clearly than I can. I swear, if I didn’t have you around I wonder if I could even remember his face.”

Jace stood up from his chair and arranged the pieces instead, letting his father cry. It was good to cry, his mother had taught him, and his father had always agreed. “The only word I’ll say against crying is it might make the job a little difficult. Gets in your eyes, is what I mean.” So Jace let his father cry, and remember.

It only took a minute after Jace sat down for the game to begin. His father moved first, the tactical advantage of white. But now a move had been made, and blue could anticipate a strategy. A seasoned player of this game could tell if the game was won from the first click of White’s serf. Truth be told, Jace would hardly know what to do if he was ever expected to make the first move instead of reacting.

“Try not to win too fast,” his father joked. Jace smiled, and moved his own serf. There was neutral ground at the start of every game, and no need to react to the first move unless you had already thought seventeen moves ahead and worked out where the opponent was hoping to end up.

“I promise, I won’t read your thoughts.” Jace was doing his best not to let his mind wander, focusing as hard as he could on the serf he was moving. A strange flicker of ghostly blue wrapped around the piece as he set it down on the board, the same aura as the illusion that Missus Vacota had sent. The piece floated just above the board, as though refusing to settle. Jace focused harder, tried to convince it to fall. It did, but he could feel his thoughts still curled around it.

“Now, I ain’t saying you shouldn’t cheat. Just asking that you give me a decent chance before you cut me off.” His father had such a pleasant smile, barely hiding an old mischief that was eager to see itself reborn in his son. Jace did his best to mirror the smile, and relaxed.

His thoughts stretched out until they had filled the room, and the game continued. Jace saw every move, saw his father’s strategy flow and change with everything from the movement of Jace’s pieces to the look in his eye. Half the time, Jace only needed to look as far as the next move, weighing if this would be the piece that cost him the game.

To his eye, when he was relaxed like this it took hours for his father to make a simple move. Jace spent a lot of time waiting, but it wasn’t an anxious sort of waiting. There was nothing pressing on his mind, no anxieties to bounce off of and keep dragging him back into time. In the space between moves, Jace Beleren had enough time to be Jace Beleren.

He had time to wonder what that meant. If he could use these tricks to get away from Silmot’s Crossing, where would he go? Who would he be, once he stopped being held down by school? Would he fight in the war? What could someone like him do out there, in the middle of a war so big that new textbooks barely even mentioned wars that came before?

“What couldn’t you do?” His father moved another piece, and Jace was brought jerking back into the passage of time by the sound of words. “Look at the board, boy.”

Jace did, and he felt something in his father’s mind. Through those eyes, the pieces became so much more complex, men and women on both sides. It all clicked together in less than a thought, more of a feeling.

“You could play empire for keeps, my boy. Hell, you could play both sides. You could stop the spells before they can cast them, spend a few hundred years in peace talks in the time it takes for an apple to fall from a tree. You could end the war, Jace.”

And then, before Jace could even begin to ask himself whether he should try something like that, the door opened.

Jace had never known a time when his mother did not exude happiness. When Ranna Beleren entered the room, he found himself asking why anyone could frown on Silmot’s Crossing, how could she not drown out every bad thought with that smile? And to look through her eyes, the world was perfect. Where Jace saw his father as a balding man with a bad leg, she saw the intrepid ringer who had diverted a massive rush of mana through Separatist territory in a desperate bid to arm a political prisoner they had only heard rumors of. She saw a hero, playing empire with his brilliant son.

Brilliant, in that moment, seemed almost literal. Looking through her eyes, Jace could see that his own eyes were glowing a brilliant, unstoppable blue. Ranna was not surprised to see that look, that magic, in her son’s eyes. Her mind seemed to warm around Jace, a quiet reassurance that he was not intruding. It almost felt as though he were being tucked into bed.

“Your move, boy.”

Jace jolted back into his own head, and looked back at the board. Half his serfs were down, and his father’s nobles had started to advance. Torn between the desire to play a good game and the building realization that his mother was about to talk, Jace moved his mage up by one spot. Nothing threatening on its own, but a clear signal that the game had changed.

“How was school today?” His mother asked, advancing on the two of them to deliver a kiss on the cheek for each.

“They gave him an impossible task.” His father had adopted a grave tone for that, reciting a line from some dog-eared novel that both elder Belerens held in high regard but that Jace was not old enough to read yet. “A test full of trick questions. And of course, our brilliant son answered them all perfectly.”

His mother nodded, and he could not ignore the fear that spiked in her thoughts for a brief moment. What kind of person wouldn’t wonder about the power of a telepath, after all? And now a teacher knew. When would the rumors start, and how far would they go? Did anyone on Silmot’s Crossing have ties to the Separatists? How long until raiders decided to attack, to try and take her son away from her?

“Mother?” Jace stepped away from the game, rushing towards his mother and doing his best to pull her into a hug. His arms couldn’t fit all the way around her, but what mattered was that he was here, that he was still here in the house and tomorrow hadn’t come yet. It had always worked before, and it worked again that day.

“My sweet, darling, brilliant baby boy.” Jace tried to mutter that he was nearly twelve, but his mother had returned the hug with interest and he could hear his father starting to get out of his chair. “I’m sorry that you end up hearing all this. I wish I didn’t have to make you worry so.”

“I’m not worried, mother.” It was almost true, and it got truer the longer he stayed in the hug. “We’re safe here, aren’t we? You always told me the rings were safe. We’re not part of the war, and we won’t be unless I choose to be.”

That had been the wrong thing to say. Or at least, it had been the right thing for an innocent child to say. But he could feel it, could see the looks that his parents were trading even as he buried his face in his mother’s chest. If a teacher suspected, his classmates would pick up on that. One way or another, some kind of rumor would spread from child to parent. Suddenly, very suddenly, he could not afford to be an innocent child anymore.

“The ring network is definitely part of the war, son. I suppose you could say that it’s what this whole war is about.” And Jace saw, and understood, exactly what was meant. He saw the network unfold in his father’s mind, the world of Vryn traced by those titanic pulses of mana all rushing back to feed the Core States. And in the shadows between those massive shafts of light, hungry eyes that wanted that power, clever minds that felt the power wasn’t being used fairly. A war fought as much for power as for freedom, and at the center of it all, the mana.

“They all want us, but they don’t dare touch us. Houses can be rebuilt, farms can be replanted, but the rings would crumble.” His mother hated every word she was saying, hated that she had to say these words, hated that her son had to even know the meaning of the word ‘war’. “But none of that makes you safe.”

“But… we’re on a ring. If they can’t come after me, then why are you scared?” Jace racked his brain for anything, any reason for these words that seemed to contradict each other. “What about the golem? Anything trying to get up onto Silmot’s Crossing from the ground has to go through that thing!”

He was starting to lose focus, hearing every possible answer with the same clarity as the one that eventually came. His father stepped forward, his mother pulled him closer, he heard technical explanations, he heard logistics, and no matter how many times his parents rephrased the explanation in their head he understood it. The seconds dragged by too slowly, and he decided to speak what they could not, pulling every needed word out of their heads.

“The golem needs mana to move. No matter how much activity the network gets, it only ever has enough to move for a few hours every day. That mana needs to be allocated manually by a guard. The guard needs to notice and recognize the intruder. An army or a war machine wouldn’t dare risk a ring, but one man can get in without any problems. The caravans, the supply caravans, too easy to sneak in that way. Separatists don’t even have a uniform to take off, ringer garb is easy to get a hold of. As long as they know who I am, anyone can come for me at any time. And it really could be anyone.”

And now, he was panicking again. It had been so long since he panicked here, in his own house, but he couldn’t fight it down. His mind was stretching out, trying to reach as far as it could and check every thought going through anyone’s mind. _Are you looking for Jace Beleren_ , he asked every mind he brushed up against. And then further panic, because what the hell was he doing? Screaming that question into everyone in range, if none of them had been planning to turn him in they’d be a good few measures closer now!

“Son, please! You need to breathe, you’re going to go crazy!”

Breathe. Pause. Focus. Floor has interesting texture. Run the fingers over the grain, feel it against you. Careful of splinters. Remember the physical, remember the body, remember the _you_. Back in own brain. Focus. Breathe. All the world, all these thoughts, a raging ocean. Pour the ocean into a cup, and hold it there.

Jace let out a breath, and opened his eyes. He had fallen to the floor at some point, and judging from the damp washcloths pressed against his parents’ faces, the turmoil had not been purely internal.

“Sorry,” he muttered, rising shakily to his feet. His mother sank to her knees and hugged him close, rubbing a hand through his hair and shushing him under her breath.

“It’s alright, dear. It’s not your fault. The world is a very terrifying place.” Just past her enormous locks, his father nodded solemnly as he sank back into his seat. He started to move around empire pieces, more for something to do than to win the game. Gav didn’t want to put the game away. It helped him focus on nice things, and he liked to think he was a better father when he was playing empire.

“What am I going to do?” Run away, hide, keep running, report to the Core States, choose a side, choose no side, jump into the mana pulse, just erase everyone’s memory, can he erase memories, our son is danger, our son is life, we cannot keep him, we must protect him, tear down the whole world they will not harm my baby boy, if I must break this entire war upon the anvil of my wrath to save him then bring me my hammer

“Mom!” Jace stared into her eyes, and was horrified to see a blue glow fading from her. How much of that panic, that anger, was his? Was he bleeding out of his own brain into others? He needed to focus, to stop that from happening, but how?

“We need to find someone who knows about telepaths,” his father announced, a rare certainty in his voice. “Someone who can teach you, and protect you. And hopefully, someone who lives very far away. And we need to find them fast.”

“I’ll talk to the mayor,” his mother said, her brain still flush with apologies and self-blame for letting her son see all that anger. Renna wanted so hard to believe that she wouldn’t kill for her son, because for someone with his powers it was imperative that he believe that killing was wrong. “He must have some sort of connections that can get us what we want to know.”

She started to get up, and Jace followed her to the door. “I know that killing is wrong,” he whispered to her, conscious that it was a bit of a strange thing to just say for no reason. And she smiled at him, leaned down and kissed his forehead.

“I can only guess at how strong you are, my dear. There’s so much that’s right there, just waiting for you to figure out how to use it. But I can imagine, and there’s so much that a telepath could do without killing someone. So, where do you draw the line? Is it only at killing?”

Jace looked into her eyes, and was afraid to look past them. The idea that there was something as bad as killing that he might be able to do to someone without killing them was making his stomach hurt. “I don’t know what I can do, mother. All I know is that I don’t want to hurt people.”

Another kiss, another hug, and then her hand was on the doorknob. “With any luck, that’s all you’ll ever need to know. I promise I’ll be back in time to make dinner.”

She did come back in time for dinner, although Jace and his father managed to play two whole games of empire before then. They both tucked Jace in that night, and against all predictions he managed to sleep soundly.

 

~

 

Jace climbed the final flight of stairs, and grabbed hold of the safety ropes. One step at a time, he pulled himself up the ring, his boots ringing against the metal and the wind whipping through his hair. Every step felt like a precarious nightmare, and this far up the ring, there was no doubt that the anxiety was completely his own. It would all be worth it in a few seconds, though.

When the ropes stopped, Jace kept walking. The ring’s top layer was rusty and barely maintained, little more than a steel floor to keep the rain out of the more delicate mechanisms. Jace sat down and let his feet hang over the edge of the ring, his fingers curled around a small divot that seemed strong enough to hold him. Up here, there was nothing but the wind, the world, and him.

And soon, there wouldn’t even be him.

It had been a week since he aced the impossible test. Every single day since then, owls had been flying to and from Silmot’s Crossing, disappearing over different points on the horizon. It had been so hard to just walk to class every day and pretend he wasn’t hoping that there would be a third person waiting at home today, someone who saw the world the way he did.

But just yesterday, his mother had come home with an even wider smile than usual, and had announced that the mayor had found a telepath. A telepath who was willing and eager to take Jace on as an apprentice, and who would be arriving today. His mother had declared that he didn’t have to go to class today, and could enjoy himself and relax while she saw to all the packing. So he had come here, where nobody else ever came, so that he could finally stop being nervous and trying to check everyone’s thoughts.

_There he is._

Jace froze, but did not let himself turn around. Someone had finally come for him, and worst of all, he recognized the thoughts. They were Tuck, Caden and Jill, and of all the people who could have come after him, they were the least surprising. For the moment, they thought that he hadn’t seen them. Technically, he still hadn’t, but he didn’t need to.

“Thought we’d find you here, Beleren.” Tuck was fourteen, a year older than Jace and a head taller. He was holding something, a solder-staff usually used for repair jobs. The sparks it put out were enough to fuse metal on contact, and Jace was too focused on not looking scared to check if Tuck had turned it down to a non-lethal setting. He hoped for that small mercy, but there wasn’t a ringer on Silmot’s Crossing who didn’t know that he was leaving today. Of all the days to do away with someone, and of all the places to do it, this could not be more perfect.

“Why are you here, Tuck?” All three minds bristled when Jace said that, and he could have punched himself. Outside of family and the bonds of courtship, first names were not to be uttered. No matter how much you knew about someone, saying their first name was somehow a step too familiar for polite culture.

“Don’t be rude, Beleren. We just want to enjoy the view with you.”Caden was thirteen and short, but he always seemed to loom regardless. He had a face like he’d already taken a hit from a solder-staff, and a mind to match. Even without reaching out, Jace could nearly see Caden’s slow and plodding thoughts from where he was sitting. Caden was lying.

“That’s not what you’re here for.” Suspicion jumped out at him, almost as clear on their faces as it was in their heads. Anyone with a decent head on their shoulders could probably have guessed that they weren’t here for anything innocent, but he knew what sort of rumors were buzzing around class. Most of them just thought he was a cheater, some thought his father was teaching him way beyond the rest of them, but a few had stumbled upon the truth. “Jace Beleren can see your brain” was a common whisper in the minds of his fellow students.

“So what are we here for, brain freak?” Jill was a girl, fourteen, and her parents didn’t work hard enough for her to have both makeup and food so they had told her to choose. Most days, she picked food, but today she had picked makeup. Was him being taken away such a special occasion?

“You’ve got a solder-staff. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were here to kill me.”

“Now why in the world would we want to do that?” Tuck touched a part of the solder-staff that made it spark, and Jace had to fight down a jolt of fear. Where he was sitting, too sudden a movement might throw him off the ring, and he wasn’t about to stand. The wind was picking up.

“Because you’re scared of me. You’re all scared of me. You’re scared of what I can do, and you’re more scared of what you think I can do.” Jace reached out, and looked at their thoughts. His eyes glowed, and Jill and Caden stepped back in fear.

Tuck didn’t, though. Tuck… thought it was pretty. So it’s true that he can do it. I wonder what he’s seeing. I bet he could have helped me on the test. Could have helped me with my homework. Mom was right, I should have just asked him for help, but no, I had to be stupid and lash out at him for my own dumb grades, and now he’s sitting there and he’s so pretty and I can’t back down and I’m holding this damn thing and

Jace decided to try something very stupid. He let down the glow, and he winked at Tuck. The bully blinked, and his mind flooded with uncertainty. But he was putting the solder-staff down, so Jace decided to risk a smile.

The staff went flying backwards, thrown off of the ring. Jill and Caden both stared at Tuck as though he had grown wings. “What did you do that for? You said we were going to...”

“The plan’s changed!” Tuck declared, and he started to march towards Jace. Once he was definitely close enough to push him off, he reached out a hand. Jace took it, and was pulled to his feet. For a moment, his face was close enough to Tuck’s that the bully could have kissed him.

But he didn’t. Instead, he very carefully marched Jace towards the safety ropes, and gestured for him to climb down. “We, uh, heard that your new teacher was almost here. That was why we, why we...”

“It’s okay, Tuck.” It wasn’t okay. Why did Tuck think of him like this? Jace had never thought of himself as cute, and he’d never really looked at Tuck that way, and in any case he needed to go soon and he could hear his own heart hammering away in his chest and he wasn’t even in danger why was it getting so hard to breathe?

“I wish we had more time” was all he could think to say, and then he was scurrying down the ropes and running down the stairs.

Had to run. Wasn’t used to being able to just walk away from Tuck, and he didn’t know if he could. He could feel anger crackling at the top of that ring like a thunderstorm, and his mind flooded with all the things that could happen.

 _I should help him_ was his first thought. He kept running down the stairs. _He’s earned whatever happens now_ was his second thought. Were both of them right? Were neither of them?

 _You said you don’t want to hurt people_. Jace stumbled, and his hand shot out to the safety rail. _I’m not the one hurting him_ , he shot back to himself. Keep running, can’t hear Tuck or Caden or Jill anymore, maybe everything is going to be fine. No distant screams, no horrible sound of bodies tumbling down stairs. _He wouldn’t make any of those sounds if he fell off the ring_. Jace breathed a sigh of relief that he was in a part of the ring where the houses were too close together for him to see anyone falling. _You shouldn’t be relieved by that_.

Finally, Jace stopped. His hand may as well have been glued to the rail, and he was afraid to let go of it for long enough to cross the staircase to open the door to his home. Could he even call it his home anymore? Tuck had said his teacher was almost here, should he be waiting down near the base for a caravan to show up?

And then the door opened, and his parents were waiting for him. They were holding his bag, like they had when he was too little to know how to prepare for school and it was a miracle if they could get him to finish his breakfast in time.

“Jace?” His mother sounded so worried, and she rushed out to hold him. “Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine, mother.” He buried his face in her hair, trying to drown in all his memories of home. He could feel their certainty like a brick wall. It was time to leave.

“Mustn’t keep him waiting,” his father said, starting down the stairs. Jace wanted to disagree, wanted to stay in his mother’s arms forever, wanted to ask what he should have done about Tuck, what he should still do, but now she was standing up and she was holding his hand and step step step down the stairs, couldn’t even go five at a time because they were going downhill so he had to keep waiting, had to keep walking, closer and closer to the telepath.

“Why wasn’t he at the house?” Jace asked after they had gone down three flights. It wasn’t much of a home, but surely it would have been polite to meet there, instead of wherever they were going. Then again, if the telepath was coming up from the caravan, it would probably be very rude to make him walk all the way up the ring and all the way down.

“He’s waiting for us on the observation deck,” his father said. “He wasn’t going to fit in our place.”

Now, that was even more curious. Had they found someone who owned a wingmare? Now that he thought of it, Jace could see how a telepath might become that rich, but surely they’d still be able to climb stairs and enter houses like a normal person. Still, it meant a ride through the air, and that would be more exciting than however long a caravan ride would take.

“ _And how would you know? You’ve never ridden a caravan, same as you’ve never ridden a wingmare. Different forms of excitement, certainly, but to call one greater than the other without prior exposure? Now that’s quite silly of you, Beleren._ ”

It was a voice Jace had never heard before, but that was not the most confusing thing about it. It wasn’t even the fact that he was certain that not a word of that had gone through his ears, that he had heard all of it in his mind. No, the most confusing thing was that it was so clear, with none of the soft bleed into pure emotion or the hundred links to long-buried memories that he always saw when he read minds. He had never touched such an ordered mind, never even believed that someone could be so organized in their thoughts.

“ _It is less a case of organization than a matter of being able to filter one’s thoughts._ ” There was the voice again, and Jace couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Was this the telepath? Was this the sort of impossible thing that he would be able to do when he was fully trained?

“ _You call something like this impossible? Oh, my dear_ _boy_ _, you have not even begun to glimpse the limits of possibility._ ”

Jace stumbled, and finally looked out of his eyes again. They had arrived on the observation deck, and his parents were suddenly very nervous. He could feel them reassuring themselves that they had known what they were getting into, that he wasn’t any more of a threat than their own son, and they believed in their son, right? Jace swallowed, and peered around his mother to see what was making them so nervous.

“ _Hello,_ _Jace_ _Beleren._ _My name is Alhammar_ _r_ _et._ ”

Alhammarret was a sphinx, a creature that Jace had always known was not a simple fairy tale but that he had never dreamed he might encounter in the flesh. He had the body of a lion, rippling with muscle that a human could only dream of, and the magnificent wings of some kind of bird. That such a beast could think with a clarity that Jace had never witnessed in humans was disconcerting enough, but then his eyes finally pointed him to the face.

Everyone knew that the sphinx had the head of a man, but Jace had never really thought of how that would look. He expected a face that was somehow large enough to fit the body, the size of a lion’s head, but Alhammarret’s face was just the same size as his father’s face. Despite his paws, Alhammarret had a perfectly trimmed goatee and not a hair out of place anywhere on his body. At last, he wore a magnificent mantle of silver and gold.

Alhammarret’s eyes lit with a soft blue glow, and his voice rang again in Jace’s head. “ _Your parents were very smart to seek me out when they did. It seems you have begun to realize what effect you can have on the world._ ” Images of Tuck flashed through his mind, and Jace found himself fighting back, dragging the thoughts back and tightening his grip on them. When he realized what he was doing, he froze in anticipation of a reprimand. Instead, Alhammarret smiled. “ _Very good. The first lesson you must learn is how to make sure that your thoughts remain your own._ ”

“My lessons have begun already?” It came as a sudden shock to Jace that those words had come from his throat, and there was a twitch to the sphinx’s smile. Jace grimaced at the realization that learning to speak with his thoughts instead of his tongue was probably part of the training, and tried again. “ _My lessons have begun already?_ ” The sphinx’s smile softened, satisfied with the student.

“ _Indeed they have. I would encourage you to say your final goodbyes. We will not be coming back this way for quite some time._ ” Alhammarret turned his back and wandered over to the edge of the deck, his wings flaring out and stretching. He was getting ready to take off.

“Goodbye, mother. Goodbye, father.” Before the words were even halfway out of Jace’s mouth, his parents had swept him into a hug. It was rare that he hugged both of them at the same time, and in that moment of shared embrace he could not have felt more loved. He felt home, but laced throughout that feeling was the looming uncertainty of what life would be like now. As his mother pressed his bag into his hands, he saw an image of his own empty room in her mind, and knew that there would be tears. He gave a final hug, and did his best to smile and be brave.

“I love you, Jace.” She kissed him on the cheek, and adjusted his scarf to make sure it wouldn’t come off if the wind picked up.

“I love you too, son.” His father had thought of giving him the game of empire, or perhaps a single piece, but had decided against it minutes before they left. Time enough to hand over that heirloom when it was time to inherit. Jace smiled, and through Gav’s mind he remembered the grandfather that he had never met. His father started to cry, but he smiled through the tears, and mouthed a final ‘thank you’.

“ _I’m ready_ ,” Jace thought to Alhammarret, and had to hold himself back from running across the deck. The sphinx, for his part, simply thought to Jace the best way to climb aboard his back and where to hold on. When everything was in place and they were both certain that Jace would not fall, Alhammarret leaped.

The ring raced past them, Jace’s entire world collapsing into nothing as the wind rolled around him. Alhammarret’s wings snapped out what seemed like moments before they would have been impaled on the ring’s ancient machinery, and now they were soaring upward. With every beat of those enormous wings, the world shook and surged away, and Jace felt every sense of direction fade from his mind. He tightened his grip on the sphinx’s collar, and stared as the great ring of Silmot’s Crossing turned and tumbled in ways that he had never thought possible.

“ _Look there, Beleren._ ” Somehow, Alhammarret directed Jace’s head to turn to see something on the ring, something so small that his eyes could not make it out. But his mind knew what it was, could see every detail of the thoughts, and his heart skipped a beat.

There was Tuck, standing alone at the summit of the ring. He was staring at Jace, and he was feeling so many amazing things. He was feeling elation at seeing Jace alive and well, loneliness at having chased away his only friends in favor of the boy who was leaving forever, and something that an innocent child like Jace could only call love.

“ _I will remember you_ ,” he promised, reaching out farther than he’d ever thought he could reach to whisper that thought in Tuck’s mind. And Tuck heard it, and grinned, and blew a kiss to Jace because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. Despite himself, Jace’s hand moved to catch the kiss.

“ _Was he your first love?_ ” Alhammarret asked as his angle changed and Silmot’s Crossing began to shrink. There was a fondness to his voice, half-remembered loves of his own just beyond Jace’s sight. Jace blushed at the thought, and hid his face in his scarf despite his new teacher facing away.

“ _I don’t… know. He seems to have loved me, but I only just learned that today._ ”

“ _Does a part of you wish that you could stay around long enough to learn if you love him back?_ ” There was a confidence to that thought, and Jace got the sense that Alhammarret was only asking to be polite.

“ _Yes_ ,” he confirmed, though it was barely even a word. It was an imagining, a wondering at what sort of romance they might have had. Jace had never really liked the romance part of his storybooks, but there was an electrifying attraction to the idea of learning what it was like to live it instead of simply read about it.

“ _I am sorry that I must take you from him, at such a beginning. But yours is a talent that should not be wasted so far from where it can do good._ ” Alhammarret adjusted his angle, and the wind seemed to change. The world blurred slightly as they picked up speed, and Jace stared at the sphinx’s wings expecting them to be beating faster.

“ _What is happening to the air?_ ” Jace tightened his grip on his teacher’s fur, and began to search the blurs for faces. He remembered old fairy tales about spirits in the air that made the wind blow so hard that it could take skin from bone, and he wanted so badly to be hidden.

“ _Nothing is happening, Beleren. We are simply passing through Cormandant’s Stream._ ” Alhammarret’s mind opened up, filling Jace’s thoughts with strange pictures of the winds mapped like oceans, atlases of clouds, and stuffy old sphinxes twirling through the air like birds on their first flight as they discovered new facets to the world around them. Cormandant’s Stream was some kind of channel of air, a winding and unpredictable river that made travel through the air faster than most sphinxes had been comfortable with. To an arbiter who had to fly all over Vryn and back again nearly every day, it was an indispensable boon.

Jace turned his eyes from his master’s thoughts, and dared to look down to the world below. There was Vryn, so far away that he could scarcely imagine he had ever been part of it. Behind him, Silmot’s Crossing was already disappearing over the horizon, and Sparrow’s River wound beneath him like a great serpent upon the earth. All along the river, he could see the faint dots of camps, the tiny trails of caravans moving to and fro between the rings.

“ _The world is so much bigger than I ever thought_ ,” Jace realized to himself.

“ _What you see now is only the smallest stretch of Vryn_ ,” Alhammarret echoed in Jace’s head. “ _I see_ _that you know something of the network, but there is a Vryn between those rings, a world that stretches far beyond the paltry maps that you have seen in class._ ”

A map exploded into being, a great spinning globe that sparkled with names and memories. Jace was falling now, tumbling through a great darkness as the history of Vryn flowed around and through him in ten shining rivers. And beside him through it all, the voice of Alhammarret.“ _The mage-rings encompass our entire world, they bind the great tide of mana into a form that our mages can draw upon, and at the center of all of those great tides there lie the Core States_ _of the Ampryn League_ _._ ”

The world spun harder, and Jace found himself diving between clouds and landing in an opulent palace. He had somehow landed on his knees, and as he looked up he realized that he was kneeling before an enormous throne of gold and ancient oak. There was a man sitting on the throne, his jewel-specked robes as far a cry from ringer garb as you could get. Jace recognized his face from every coin he’d ever paid with; this was the Prefect of the Ampryn League, Septum Hiraka.

“ _Look at him_.” Alhammarret’s words washed over Jace like a tidal wave of absolute hatred, a contempt born of endless meetings and constant bull-headedness. The scene around them flickered, the various nobles that stood in the wings swapping faces while Septum barely stirred from his position. “ _Calls himself the secretary to the states, but he only ever signs mobilization orders._ _Nothing o_ _f_ _note ever crosses that damned desk of his._ _All the peace treaties are signed by his underlings, paying lip service to the idea that they’re acting on his behalf._ _I doubt he even knows what happens anymore._ ”

“ _Peace treaties?_ ” As he asked the question, the throne room disappeared. Jace now stood before a great stone in the middle of a wide field, the stench of blood still fresh on the morning air. The men and women on both sides of the stone were angry, tired and could not seem to decide whether they wanted the fighting to stop or whether they just wanted to win. On the stone itself, there sat a scrap of parchment that crackled with arcane power.

“ _You call them Separatists, but this is an Ampryn word, just the same as Core States. It is the way that they divide you, try to convince the ringers that they owe allegiance to the Ampryn, should join the League’s armies. The Trovians are just another people, one that does not wish to be brought to heel by the demands of a single city._ ”

Two men, one Trovian and one Ampryn, advanced towards the stone from their respective sides. They signed the parchment, and nodded to Jace. No, he realized; they were nodding to Alhammarret. He was just remembering something that Alhammarret had seen.

“ _But if they’ve signed a treaty, why is the war still going? Why did I never hear about this?_ ”

“ _There are too many treaties to teach in a classroom, and none of them matter to ringers. That there exists a war at all only matters to the ringers so that they can be recruited to fight in it._ ” Again, the scene began to flicker to similar scenes, different battlefields and different generals but always the same thoughts. “ _These peaces are nothing but ceasefires, a year or two for both sides to recoup losses and lick their wounds. We sign such treaties when both sides are exhausted enough to pause. Only pause, never stop._ ”

The words sounded tired, but the mind that birthed them did not seem burdened. Jace examined the memories, and found that they flickered from one scene to the other at the slightest mental urging. He dove into the frozen moments of every thought on those battlefields, drinking in his teacher’s knowledge.

“ _It would be so easy to stop this war_ ,” he said at last. The memories around him trembled at that, and Alhammarret was there in body as well as in voice. He seemed confused at first, an emotion he hid with a practiced look of polite inquiry.

“ _And how, my apprentice, would you end it? What answer to war can you find that I, a practiced arbiter who has been here nearly as long as the war itself?_ ”

“ _The mage-rings_.” Jace pointed to the magnificent structures, always on the horizon no matter where they stood in history. “ _The war does not dare to touch them, because they are what the war is being fought for. The Trovians_ _chose to make the rings the symbol of their freedom, just_ _like how_ _the Ampryn chose to claim the rings as evidence for why Vryn needs their control. This war is fought with magic, and that magic is fueled by the rings. Break the rings, and you break the mages. Break the mages, and you break the war._ ”

“ _To take away one weapon does not preclude the use of others. This war could as easily be fought with sticks and stones as with spells._ ”

Jace turned to meet the sphinx’s eyes, and dove deep. Maybe it was because they were already deep in some kind of thoughtscape, or maybe Jace was learning more than he expected from the simple touch of such a master, but he found years of meetings, years of debates with Trovians and Ampryns about the nature of the war and what it would take to snatch some semblance of peace.

“ _They are obsessed with the rings_ ,” he concluded. “ _This war stopped being about freedom twelve years ago. Both sides want nothing but power, and the rings are the only way they can see to grab it._ ”

“ _You w_ _ould plunge them into chaos,_ _then_ _?_ ” Alhammarret rose up out of the sea of his own memories, fixing Jace with a deep and angry glare. “ _You would tear the oldest structure of this world from its foundations and leave the population without the very thing that civilization has been built upon for the last thousand years?_ _The balance of the rings is the only thing that has kept this war from consuming Vryn._ _As long as each side thinks it can win, that balance holds, and the rings stand. If either side ever loses faith that they can win, they will burn where today they merely abandon._ ”

“ _They won’t_ ,” Jace fired back. “ _We could so easily show them what they’re doing wrong. We can show them what the other is thinking, eliminate any suspicion at negotiations. There must be a common ground, something that can bridge the gap between them._ ” He thought back to just a few minutes ago, when Tuck had come up the ring looking for a fight and Jace had been able to stop him in his tracks.

“ _You will get nowhere as an arbiter if you try to solve every problem like a child’s argument. The Trovians are nothing like your primitive bullies._ ”

Something in Jace got very, very angry at the flash of images that went through Alhammarret’s head at that moment. He saw Tuck, his features blown out of proportion to make him ugly, Jill’s hair transformed into a ratty mop that looked like something had died on top of her head, and Caden’s face as some kind of warped potato. “ _Well, now I’m surprised that the Trovians even look human in these memories._ _What sort of diplomat are you, if this is how you see anyone who gets in your way?_ _What sort of diplomat wants to keep a war going?_ ”

Alhammarret was beginning to draw back, and his thoughts rang with hesitation. How was this child so strong already? Why was he digging so deep? He had expected meekness, had expected a simple mind terrified of itself, easy to mold, easy to change, but instead Jace was pushing him back, challenging him, how much of himself was bleeding through this child’s brain, what sort of telepath was this incontinent with their thoughts, is he seeing this, how, no, get out, “ _Get out!_ ”

Jace expected to be jolted out of Alhammarret’s brain, back into his own head and the silence of the ride to wherever they were going—a great cliff face rose out of the fog, the Face of Law, and a cave hidden in its most dangerous crevices—but that did not happen. Instead, he felt the full force of Alhammarret’s mind rage against him, felt himself skid against an imaginary floor, but something caught. There was something inside him that wanted to stand its ground, wanted to hold its own against this assault, laughed at the weakness of this sphinx trying to hold him back, do you know who I am?

Another wave, another laugh rising up from whatever this voice inside Jace was, and then… something more. He was coming apart, disappearing from Alhammarret’s mind without yielding ground. He was opening up, becoming stronger, becoming _more_.

Here it was. He could feel it. All of the sphinx’s thoughts were so small, and Vryn was so small, and he was drifting, falling away and upwards…

“No!”

They landed on the platform, and Jace fell off of the sphinx’s back. He clutched his head and screamed, tried to fight off the pain that was being shot into him by those eyes, those damned eyes, stop looking at me stop looking at me stoplookinggatm e stoppnglsdiooking at etjm stop llookkingggg

His head hit the platform, and darkness embraced him.

 

~

 

 _He’s being careful_ was a thought that Jace kept having about his teacher. He kept thinking it whenever the sphinx seemed to stop himself, brought a lesson to an abrupt end as he decided that he didn’t want to teach this technique or that trick to his pupil yet. The strangest part was how automatic the thought was. Some part of Jace knew that there was a reason that Alhammarret was being careful, and he wished that it would speak up about why.

It was the same part of him that was adamant that he should not admit that he knew his teacher was being careful. Still, Jace was a curious soul, and that had only been encouraged since he came here. So when Alhammarret decided to stop a lesson about the best way for a telepath to defuse an argument, he spoke up.

“ _There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me._ ” Jace adjusted his new clothes, trying not to think about how itchy they were. What did a sphinx know about finding a good tailor, anyway?

“ _There is always something I am not telling you. That is how teaching works_.” The sphinx nodded to the tailor, and Jace handed over the coins without a word.

The tailor was bubbling over with so much fear that Jace found it hard to focus. He knew damn well that he’d done a poor job, and was worried that somehow messing up a diplomatic uniform would cause the war to go on for months yet. Excuses kept bubbling up in his mind, rising prices of materials and caravans lost to war-related explosions, and it just kept going on and on.

“Look, it’s fine.” It really wasn’t. “You did an excellent job on the uniform.” They had done a horrible job and Jace did not know how he would manage wearing this for another minute, let alone two hours. “Thank you so much for your time, and we both hope you have an excellent day.” Neither of them would even remember the tailor once they turned their backs.

Still, the tailor only picked up on the words, and he smiled and gave a small bow. Jace turned on his heels, stepping out of the shop with all the purpose of somebody who had to memorize a complete layout of every town he went to before he even learned its name.

“ _Excellent work, Beleren._ ” It was hard to tell whether Alhammarret was really that much faster than Jace, or if Jace was just trained to fall into step behind his teacher instead of trying to pull ahead. It seemed odd to stay so close when they could communicate from opposite ends of the street. “ _He didn’t detect even a hint of your annoyance._ ”

“ _But you did._ ” Jace didn’t mean to sound defeated, but it was so hard to hide his emotions during direct conversation. Alhammarret chuckled, not with the mind but with his own throat. It was a rare sound, and Jace fought down a random shudder.

“ _Do not use me as a metric for your success, Beleren. It will be a long time before you can keep secrets from me._ ” A wing unfurled, pointing the way to their destination.

They stood before a great hall, towering over every other building in the small town and weathering scars that would have and almost certainly had leveled lesser buildings. Jace could still taste the traces of magic, could guess the configurations in the mages’ minds. This was where the latest round of peace talks were happening.

“ _Remember, Beleren, you are only here to observe and record. The objective is to learn everything that is not being said, without arousing suspicion._ _I will expect a full report on the ride home._ ”

Jace nodded, not bothering to put words to his mental confirmation. This was the third such peace talk he had attended since his training began, and his involvement had been nothing but sitting around and playing dumb with increasing layers of complexity. Three peace talks, and nothing had been accomplished. A few months of ceasefire was the best result they could accomplish, and it always seemed to fall apart just as the world was finally getting ready to move on.

“ _Isn’t it time to change something?_ ” He knew it wasn’t the first time he had asked this question, but Alhammarret’s mind still bristled at the idea.

“ _The current balance is the best that can be hoped for_ ,” he droned as they made their way to the central speaking platform. Trovians and Ampryn had filled every seat in the hall, packed so tight together that only the solid wall of the Ampryn League’s distinctive white scarves made clear which side of the hall was on which side of the war.

“ _This balance is costing people their lives. You can see the solution just as plain as I can._ ” Jace could feel it, could see all the pieces that he had studied during the last two talks. Everyone in this room had a family, had lost someone, and so many of them either knew how to meet the other side’s demands or would be all too ready to snatch the first such offer without examination. “ _Let me speak, and the war will be over._ ”

“ _I will not risk chaos just to let you prove a point_.” Alhammarret cleared his throat, a process that took almost half a minute but succeeded in halting all conversation and drawing all eyes and thoughts to him. Jace leaned against the guardrail, and fought down a grin as a hundred minds came to the same conclusion about the snot-nosed brat clinging to the sphinx’s tail. They thought he was some kind of glory hound, or maybe an aristocrat pulling strings to see this momentous occasion from the most unique perspective.

Momentous, that was the worst part of it. All these tiny little minds thought this occasion was something special, something worth celebrating. Both Trovians and Ampryn alike were looking around the room, memorizing the faces and preparing the stories they would tell their friends and family. He could see their memories, could explore every peace talk they’d attended without them even feeling a twinge of nostalgia, and he knew that this was nothing special. But these weak, angry warmongers and taxmasters and cruel, desperate people were all so convinced that today mattered.

Somebody stood up. He was covered in scars. Some of the bandages looked fresh, looked wet. All eyes turned to him, and Alhammarret stopped speaking. He glared at everyone, met each and every pair of eyes and poured all his rage into that instant of eye contact. He was a pillar of fire, and Jace found himself mesmerized by the thoughts radiating off of him.

“The war has to end,” the scarred man growled, “or there’ll be nobody left to fight it.”

Jace wanted to step forward. He wanted to apologize for the things he had said, even though he hadn’t said them. He saw the pain, felt the pain, heard a child screaming and knew that there shouldn’t be a child here, not on the battlefield, I can’t cast this spell with a child on the battlefield, stop stop we have to _STOP_

Jace managed to catch himself before he collapsed. Mercifully, nobody had been looking in his direction. He could feel his eyes glowing, and he had to fight down the urge to run.

“It will end.” Alhammarret sounded as unaffected as ever, but this time it hurt to hear. “I promise you, the war ends today.”

Nobody asked how long the war would be over for. Nobody else even thought it. They were content to sit back down and pat themselves on the back and tell each other that they would work towards peace today, as if Chancellor Viggo wasn’t slipping out of the room to meet an anonymous source that would let him assassinate the current ringleader of the Trovians. It was enough for all the fools in this room to pretend at peace for a few hours, and then wait for scars to heal before doing it all over again.

Jace wanted to speak. Jace needed to speak. Jace was about to speak. Then Alhammarret thought to him, “ _Don’t you have an errand to run?_ ”

 

~

 

Jace stumbled into his bedroom. It was a lonely little thing, an arrangement of closets and nightstands and a bed that Alhammarret had specially ordered. Based on experience, it had been made by a bedsmith as capable as the tailor who had produced today’s stuffy, constricting diplomatic uniform.

Jace swallowed the urge to tear the uniform from his own back, and set about patiently unbuttoning himself. It had been a long day. It had been a boring day, very boring. He had tuned out most of what Alhammarret had said, and his report had left something to be desired. He would have to make some solid progress tomorrow if he didn’t want to get on the sphinx’s bad side.

Very boring day. Very boring. Very boring. Very boring. Why couldn’t he think of anything except how boring and unremarkable the day had been? Surely something interesting must have happened, some interesting memory he had plunged into to alleviate the boredom, boredom, boredom, don’t remember anything because it was just so boring.

He would have to ask Alhammarret about any spells to sharpen his memories. He couldn’t be expected to make much progress if he kept zoning out like this.

The uniform was thrown into a pile at the bottom of the nearest closet, and Jace pulled himself into a nightgown from his days at Silmot’s Crossing. Despite several washes, it still smelled faintly of the rings, that ever-present crackle of mana lingering on his tongue as he breathed in. It was one of a hundred tiny details that only seemed clearer with the passing of time.

He really should be able to remember more about what the past day had been like, with a memory this sharp.

There was something inside the nightgown this time that wasn’t supposed to be there. It was scratching against his chest, and it was just big enough that he couldn’t just ignore it and get in the bed. Jace looked down the front of his nightgown, and noticed something very unusual. A tiny piece of paper had been folded up and shoved into a pocket that looked like it had been sewn by somebody with a nail for a needle.

Jace slipped the note out of the pocket, and checked that his door was shut before unfolding it. If he was leaving secret notes to himself, it stood to reason that he didn’t want Alhammarret to be seeing anything. Of course, that begged the question of why he didn’t remember writing the note, or hiding the note, or stitching the pocket. He wondered what dirty little secret could possibly be so embarrassing that he had asked Alhammarret to erase his memory.

The note was written in his hand, of course. Cramped, unassuming, and so used to running out of space that he had written as small as could be managed while still being legible. All of those observations fell into nothing when he finally began to read the words.

_My name is Jace Beleren. I have the power to read minds. There are other worlds beyond Vryn, worlds that only certain people can reach. I am one of those people. I am a planeswalker._


	4. Mind Unbound, Body Not Found

Jace sat curled up on his bed, staring at the scrap of paper that lay by his foot. Nothing made sense when he looked at it, but it felt impossible to look away.

He kept coming back to that word, planeswalker. It certainly described someone who could move between planes, if that was what one chose to call the other worlds. But it wasn’t a word that fit any rules that Jace knew. Why would he ever choose to call himself a planeswalker? It would be far more sensible to label himself something like a multiversal keystone, or if he wanted something that others would actually tolerate, he could go for something more mythical. A traveler, perhaps. No, a Traveler. Was there a way to pronounce a capital letter?

Regardless, it was not a word that Jace Beleren had come up with. So he must have heard it from someone. But that begged the question of where he had heard it, and that brought him back to the question of why he couldn’t remember hearing it, and that made him think about how hard it was to remember what had happened earlier today, boring boring boring the whole time after Alhammarret had turned to him and said…

Jace didn’t know what Alhammarret had said.

“Alhammarret.” It felt awful to say the name aloud, as though the sphinx could hear spoken words better than thoughts. That monster had stolen his memories, wiped them away without the slightest care. Jace stared at the piece of paper, staring with so much fear and hatred that he wished it would just disappear.

But he couldn’t let it disappear. No matter how much that word scared him, no matter how much it shook him to his core, he couldn’t send it away. He had to hold onto that somehow, even if everything else he had been thinking for the past hour was…

“Oh.”

So that was why the paper could be hidden in a pocket inside his own clothes. He made sure to put it back where it belonged, and then he lay down under his sheets and got to work.

Jace took a deep breath, and folded inward. All the hard edges of his room bled away as his thoughts got louder and louder, and there was the briefest moment where he felt like he was teetering on the edge of an impossibly high cliff, but instead of falling he just… stopped feeling the edge beneath him. Jace floated inside a cloud of himself, and began to look around for his memories.

For the moment, Jace’s mindscape was a tapestry, woven with all the care and attention to detail that his mother might have taken in weaving a scarf to protect against winds at the summit of the ring. Every thread was perfectly arranged, growing and shifting and changing into a beautiful work of art.

Well, nearly every thread.

There were patches in the tapestry, places where the threads had been torn or frayed and someone had tried to cover over them with another material. It was so much plainer than the real thing, barely more than thick paper covered in basic designs. Jace reached out to touch the patches, and shuddered at the realization that they were only the thinnest layer of subterfuge. It would be so easy to peel the paper away, to take the frayed strands into his hands and pull them back together into what had really happened, but he couldn’t risk it.

 _He’s being kind,_ Jace realized. _He could have done far worse._ But he also could have done far better, and that was where Jace came in.

Here was the memory of discovering the note, of where it was hidden, of what it said. He reached out and undid the threads, weaving them back together in a much simpler way. Gone were the twists and turns of sudden revelation, replaced by a gradual slide into sleep and a lingering, but persistent, idea that he should keep a diary.

When Jace lifted his hands from the thoughts, they were indistinguishable from the rest of the pattern. Only a tiny part of him could even remember that he had changed anything, and with every passing breath it was harder to keep hold of that moment.

 _That should be enough_ , he thought before drifting back up to his body. By the time the room seemed real again, he had forgotten why that was a change from the normal. Jace felt as though he was waking up just before going back to sleep.

 

~

 

_Day One_

_I have decided to keep a journal of my apprenticeship under Alhammarret._ _As my teacher seems reluctant to supply a proper writing book for this purpose, I have decided to keep a number of paper scraps to hand so that I can record interesting events as they happen._ _I am writing in pencil so that any scrap that doesn’t hold anything interesting can be reused without having to obtain more paper. Apologies to myself for any smudges._

 

_Day Three_

_Mr A showed a map of Vryn, pointed out key weaknesses in the ring network and lectured on their vulnerabilities. When questioned, he said the information might come in useful someday._

_Addendum: Shit, this is really happening._

 

_Day One_

_I have decided to keep a journal of my apprenticeship under Alhammarret._ _He says I don’t need a journal, so I’ve filled my pockets with scrap paper and pencil. Probably won’t keep any of the stuff that turns out boring. Sorry about the smudging._

 

_Day Seven_

_In town under Mr A supervision._ _So many guards, think they’re here to protect someone but none of them know who. A distress signal agreed on, they’ll defend whoever gives it._ _Find the one they’re protecting, provoke an attack. Give the distress signal. Don’t let him see this message._

 

_Day One_

_Found a weird notch in my belt. Alhammarret has no idea how I got it, but I swore I could detect evasion in his thoughts. In light of this discrepancy, I have decided to keep a journal so that future damages will not go unnoticed. To prevent aggravating my teacher, I will keep this journal on scrap paper, easily concealed within my clothes. Hopefully it will still be legible._

 

_Day Two_

_There has been a breakdown of communications in the Ampryn League. Based on what I could deduce from my teacher’s thoughts, I believe that one of their spymasters has died. Unexpected, but I suppose something had to tip the balance back to war. With fewer avenues of information, Alhammarret grows more and more vital to both sides with each passing day._

 

_Day Four_

_The chancellor is not pleased with this development. Believes I reneged on our pledge by killing the spy. Had to remind him the transaction was complete when I told him where to find_ _Takud_ _._ _Erased memory, more convenient that way._

 

_Day Five_

_Up at crack of dawn, found the journal. What the hell did I do yesterday? Why do I remember anything about yesterday? If I’m following the pattern right I should be on the first day again. Why was he so confident in his wipe this time?_

 

_Day Twenty-Four_

_After nearly a month of peace, everything finally went back to shit and war. Chancellor Viggo accused the Trovians of assassinating a spymaster, and the Trovians took offense at the very idea that spies would be necessary. They trusted the League, they said. They won’t be making that mistake again, I know._

 

_Day Twenty-Six_

_Today marks a full month since we signed that peace treaty. I have a massive headache and, strangely enough for him, Alhammarret does not remember the past two days. We awoke in lodgings that neither of us remember paying for. Note: by ‘we’ awoke in lodgings I mean that I awoke in lodgings, and my teacher woke up in a stable. Not even pegasi either, simple trotters. Our landlady’s mind bears no signs of tampering, but also no memory of admitting us. My teacher congratulated himself for thinking ahead and saving face, and we set off._ _There was a guardhouse just beside the inn, but they had all been asleep since sundown._

 

_Day One_

_Master is angry. Master is displeased. Master does not like it when I get ideas above my station. I made a mistake, fixing everything. I should have let him handle it. I must let him handle it next time. I must I must I must must must must Jace Jace JACE JACE JACE JACE BELEREN JACE BELEREN PLANESWALKER PLANESWALKER PLANESWALKER_

 

_Day One_

_I have decided to keep a journal of my apprenticeship under Alhammarret._ _As my teacher seems reluctant to supply a proper writing book for this purpose, I have decided to keep a number of paper scraps to hand so that I can record interesting events as they happen._ _I am writing in pencil so that any scrap that doesn’t hold anything interesting can be reused without having to obtain more paper. Apologies to myself for any smudges._

 

_Day Fourteen_

_A seems perplexed about how long we have been at peace. He is tense throughout every peace talk. I had to shield the Trovian leader’s mind today; A was lashing out and could have caused lasting damage. I attempted to make him acknowledge my actions, but he only grew more tense. Perhaps I am learning faster than he would like._

 

_Day One_

_I am going to keep a journal of what it’s like to train as a telepath. All of this is so new to me, and I am in awe of how controlled the magnificent Alhammarret is at all times. The only way I can possibly keep track of all of his amazing lessons is to write them down. Might get smudged a little, hope that doesn’t happen. How would I be able to remember my awesome teacher’s teachings that way?_

 

_Day Ten_

_Somehow took me ten days to shrug off the effects. Examined it closely, was no less of a botched affair than other attempts. He still has nothing but a hammer, he just used it harder this time. One more stunt like this, and I might just have to start undoing his earlier wipes. Cumulative effect unlikely to be harmless._

 

_Day One_

_Decided to keep journal of A’s teachings. He seems certain of a coming war. In interest of being able to keep this journal while memories are still fresh, will preserve it in portable bits of paper. Most likely to smudge, but unavoidable._

 

_Day Three_

_Another notch in my belt._ _What could I possibly be counting?_

 

_Day Four_

_Another notch in my belt._ _Perhaps this is linked to General_ _Dringen’s death in some way?_

 

_Day Five_

_Another notch in my belt._ _Another general is dead. My cheeks are wet and it is not raining. A feels very pleased with himself._

 

_Day Twenty_

_Had to wash my gloves for hours, and take lessons the whole time. Lesson learned, don’t mess with red paint._

 

_Day_ _Thirty-Seven_

_My belt broke apart from how many notches have been carved into it._ _What have I been counting?  
__No more of this. Tonight, I will end it._

 

_Day One – Birthday_

_Today is my birthday. As a present to myself, I have decided to keep a journal. Not sure what sort of a present that is, but I can’t seem to make myself shut up about journals so I may as well start one. It’ll probably smudge the way I’m doing it, but what else do you expect when Alhammarret’s whole mind turns to steel at the very thought of journals? Not sure if he even realized he wasn’t the one thinking that._

 

_Day One – Birthday_

_Today I killed a man. Alhammarret had tied him up in some shed out in the middle of nowhere. He erased my memory of the flight to and back, but left the event. He made me scoop the man’s thoughts out and dangle them in front of him. Taunted him, asking him if he could even tell what they looked like from outside. Alhammarret laughed when the man couldn’t tell the difference between a memory of his wife and his dog._

_“This is a game, Beleren.” I remember he said that to me. “_ _It is only a game, and yet you keep getting attached. You shouldn’t get attached. Nobody ever won by caring about their pawns._ _”_

_He made me break the man’s mind into tiny pieces. Made me look into his eyes while I tore him to shreds and left him there, only just remembering how to breathe. There is a cadence to the laughter of a sphinx that terrifies me to my core, as though I had heard it echoing constantly for my entire life._

_I broke my victim’s neck while Alhammarret was getting ready to take off. Neither of them noticed._

 

_My name was Jace Beleren._ _I served as the apprentice to the arbiter Alhammarret for I don’t know how many weeks or months at this point._ _But do not be fooled; this war has only continued as long as it has because it lined the sphinx’s pockets._ _In service to my teacher, I sold military secrets to both sides of the war. I have killed men and women, Trovian and Ampryn, whoever would most destabilize the current peace with their death._ _I also, once in a while, managed to preserve the peace despite all that._

_Alhammarret is a monster. Where your generals and diplomats and soldiers and mages all believe in the ideals of your people, he only believes in his function._ _He refuses to be anything else, to admit that he could serve any other function, and so his present function must be made vital._ _Without a war, there cannot be an arbiter._ _But without an arbiter, will there still be a war?_

_I have seen enough to believe that without my teacher’s machinations, a permanent peace is possible._ _I have done enough to believe that I might be able to kill him._

_I hope that I am right, that I have saved Vryn by doing this. It is my hope, my sincerest belief, that we can live in harmony._

_Please prove me right, whoever you are._

 

~

 

Jace put the last paper down. He had arranged the entire journal on his bed, in his best approximation of the proper order of events. If he succeeded, then someone would come looking for the damned sphinx, and they would search the monster’s lair. No matter what else they found, his journal would be there. There would be at least one telepath on Vryn who admitted to his crimes.

One last breath, in and out. He gathered his thoughts around himself, turning them at right angles to try and shield his intent. It wouldn’t last long, but it would last long enough.

The door opened, and Jace wandered out, doing his best to look casual. Alhammarret’s cave was a small thing, a model of efficiency that did not waste a single inch of space. The few halls did not stray far enough from the cave entrance to lose sunlight, so even the light was subject to the sphinx’s ruthless efficiency. There were no deep shadows in which to sulk, no lofty overhangs behind which an assassin might lurk, and even the vaulted ceilings in the main chamber were polished to a mirror smoothness. Every handhold was in bright light, and every shadow was useless.

“ _How unfortunate, then, that your assassin does not need shadows to strike._ ”

The centerpiece of the cave, and the hub of Alhammarret’s activity, was the archive. Here was a great engine of thought, the locus of the sphinx’s great mind. Somehow, within the confines of this monolithic device, Alhammarret was able to store his memories, letting theories swim around in his knowledge and evolve into conclusions without having to take any time away from his work.

Jace advanced towards the staircase, letting his mind spread out and scan the cave. There, curled up atop the archive like a venomous snake, Alhammarret was waiting. His mind was bent towards a map of Vryn, referencing some thought tucked away in the archive. Jace took a deep breath, and focused on the sphinx as he walked up the stairs. Now was not the time to get distracted.

“ _Hello, Beleren. Didn’t expect to see you up again tonight._ ” He turned to regard the sunset, the sight flooding his mind until it was nearly burning itself into Jace’s eyes. The bright oranges, the burning purples of the clouds, sights that would have filled Jace with nostalgia and homesickness if he were using his own eyes, felt so cynical and pointless in the sphinx’s thoughts.

“ _You’re slipping, teacher. You weren’t always so obvious._ ” Jace felt the bite of his own words, and saw a slight flinch in the sphinx’s eyes. His mind trembled with hatred for the monster before him, with no hope of the impartiality so prized by his teacher.

“ _Explain yourself, Beleren._ ” Alhammarret slowly turned his back on the map, glaring at Jace with an icy disdain that felt designed to kill.

Jace braced himself for an attack, drawing up the mana needed to defend his mind. “ _I know what I am._ ”

Panic shot through his teacher’s mind, and his lips drew back in a sneer. “ _Oh, do you? And what are you, Beleren?_ ”

“I am a planeswalker.”

Alhammarret surged to his feet, and struck Jace with a great, wordless roar. His entire formidable mind reared up and struck the boy, and Jace’s every instinct compelled him to fall to his knees. His mind creaked and groaned at the very thought of disobeying, his legs trembled and his hands… they bent inward, a gesture of prayer, of supplication.

Anger rose in Jace, and he looked up at Alhammarret. He stared past the sparking blue light in those too-small eyes, and let himself see the fear that was making this monster attack him so relentlessly.

“ _I know what you’re thinking_ ,” Jace whispered in the sphinx’s mind. “ _It’s not going to work._ ”

Alhammarret’s assault faltered, his eyes flickering with surprise. Jace reached out and grabbed hold of the sphinx’s spell, tracing the mana equations on instinct and snatching eddies of power from the air around them. Alhammarret’s next attempt at a spell was fractured, bludgeoned back by his own crude hammer. There was an opening, a momentary crack in his impervious defenses. Jace made his choice.

“ _Why did you hide it from me?_ ” He slipped past the attack and into Alhammarret’s mindscape, a featureless ocean beneath a starless night. Both sides of the duel managed to hold fast, but only for the moment. “ _Tell me why you kept it a secret, why you told me over and over that I was this useless child instead of what I really am?_ ”

Alhammarret growled and loomed over Jace, towering higher than the mage-rings. “ _Your true nature is an inconvenience, boy. You are only useful to me so long as you remain on Vryn. You must understand, I am only doing what is necessary._ ”

“ _To line your pockets, maybe._ ” Jace focused on the limits of the mindscape, channeling the sphinx’s own mana up through his body and strengthening the defenses. “ _But don’t you dare tell me that what you did to me… that what you’ve done to Vryn was ever necessary._ ”

“ _I am order, you foolish child. I am here to balance the scales of this society. And if you will not assist in that function, then I see no reason to keep you alive._ ”

“ _Why do I get the feeling that I’ve heard that threat before?_ ” Jace radiated confidence, only helped by the lack of awareness from Alhammarret about what he was doing. The fool was too busy defending against outright attacks to expect something less direct.

“ _This time, it is not idle. You have rebelled too many times for even I to feel confident in controlling you. When I have defeated you, I will kill you._ ”

“If _you defeat me._ ” There. An instant of confusion, of panic from the unflappable beast, and Jace’s trap was sprung.

The ocean became turbulent, and great walls of steel fell from the sky around them. The endless expanse above became a harsh ceiling, and the waters below their feet turned to a smooth glass floor. All that power, all that genius, was suddenly trapped inside of itself. On the edge of their shared awareness, Jace felt Alhammarret’s assault fail and his body collapse.

“ _No..._ ” For the first time, unfiltered fear colored the sphinx’s thoughts. He flapped his wings and flew up into the steel ceiling, and mage-rings rose and fell from the glass as his mind grasped for any semblance of the outside world. The archive formed around him for a few seconds, just long enough for his paws to go scrabbling for the controls and meet nothing but featureless metal. There was a desperate pounding noise, a hammering against the walls from outside. It was the sphinx’s heartbeat.

“ _No more, Alhammarret._ ” The mindscape was fraying, with random memories bumping up against the underside of the glass as the sphinx tried to think of any way out. Jace glared down at the sea of information beneath him, and reached out to take hold of a promising fish.

With a squeeze of his fist, Jace crushed Alhammarret’s memory of the mindscape. And all of a sudden, what had been merely an unexpected trap became an alien landscape that obeyed no rules. The hammering got louder, and louder, and louder, until it seemed that no other sound could have ever existed.

“ _No…_ _damn you, Beleren, what have you_ done!”

“ _I have_ _killed you_ _._ ” Jace brushed away an imaginary speck of dust from his shoulder, and took a deep breath. He wondered if his teacher’s lungs had given out yet. “ _And do you want to know what the really satisfying part is? You won’t even have time to realize what’s happening until it’s too late._ ”

The sphinx lunged, and the mindscape lunged with him. Glass and steel raged against Jace, battering him about like a ragdoll. He felt not even a ghost of a reaction from his body, so far away now.

“ _I hope you appreciate the artistry of this, teacher. I’ve put everything I have into this trap. You won’t escape it, and neither will I._ ” He dodged a random gout of hate, and laughed despite himself. “ _We’re both going to die, don’t you see? The puppetmasters of Vryn, marching into the void together!_ ”

The hammering fell silent. The mindscape crumpled, collapsing into a single point as the mind tried to complete every thought it had left. For a moment, the ceiling yielded and showed a brief spot of night. The sphinx lunged for it, but Jace took hold and brought him crashing down. He grit his teeth, and stared into the beast’s feral man-eyes. The blue glow was completely gone from them, replaced by the blank fear of a child woken from slumber by the roar of a lion.

“ _Not to heaven_ ,” Jace growled, one hand on the beast’s throat and the other outstretched to the sky. “ _Hand in hand, to hell!_ ”

And all of a sudden, Jace could not feel his body anymore.

 

~

 

The boy opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was cobblestone, wet with rain and cold to the touch. He tried to sit up, and his body rang with aches. There was a spot of blood on the cobbles, right where he had laid his head. The soft rains pittered down onto the stone, and he watched the blood wash away. The boy’s hand went to his face, expecting to find a scrape on his forehead. Instead, his fingers did not come away red until he touched them to just below his nose. There was no tenderness, no break in the cartilage. So why...

_“_ _Poor kid, wonder what happened to him._ _”_

_“_ _Bet he’s some Dimir punk._ _”_

_“_ _Dumb orphan. No money, not worth it._ _”_

The boy looked up, scared by the voices. There were people, moving around him for now but quickly losing patience. They looked at him, but only for a few moments, and they stopped thinking about him almost as soon as they stopped looking. They were thinking about grocery lists, errands to run, areas to avoid, orphanages to visit…

Orphanages.

The boy pushed himself up onto his knees, and managed a few breaths before the press of bodies threatened to knock him back down. He struggled to his feet, hands grasping near-blind at anything that could hold him up. Maybe somebody helped him up, maybe he crawled up on his own. The boy was a world away from his own body by the time he had stood.

He was looking for an orphanage. He was poking the minds around him, making the idea drift through their minds, so that they would think of one. Strange answers came back, thoughts that he only understood because he was seeing them through a lens that had grown up with these words their whole life.

There were Orzhov orphanages, either a shelter for the victims of debt or a collection box of the next generation’s potential contributions, depending on who thought of them. The Simic always had use for subjects, and some people thought that might include a warm bed and a good meal if only for a night. The Azorius had an amazing foster care system, but they needed paperwork. Names, dates of birth, reasons that he was an orphan.

The boy tried to think of what he would write on such papers, and came up with nothing. He had been walking, he had been lying on the street, and before that…

_“_ _They say the Dimir snatch children from cradles to train them..._ _”_

_“_ _Never even seen a child at a Rakdos gathering..._ _”_

_“_ _Izzet’s probably got a gadget for raising children, but it won’t come cheap..._ _”_

“ _Emmara Tandris has a manor in Ovitzia._ _You will be safe there._ ”

“Thank you.” The boy’s mouth felt dry, and he couldn’t tell if his words were too loud or too quiet. The mind that had given him that message seemed to melt away into the crowd as quickly as it had sharpened, and he was left alone in the sea of people once more.

Ovitzia was a district, affluent and wealthy and easy to find. These people knew their city well, as though they carried the roads in their hearts. Every scared step that the boy took was full of memories for these people, a hundred thousand interlocking histories full of more twists and turns than he could ever imagine living through himself. He got the sense that he had never been to a place like this, had never seen so many people in one place.

When he finally stumbled into lush Ovitzia, opulent Ovitzia with its gleaming manors and its diligently cleaned streets the world became focused. The people here were not milling about on the streets, navigating half with their brains and half with their muscle, but were all confident strides or leisurely strolls. They watched him longer than the people on the tighter streets, but they were not kind in their gaze.

_“_ _Contemptible urchin, dirtying our streets. If he has the gall to beg for scraps, I shall summon the hounds._ _”_

_“_ _If your next step isn’t towards that elf Tandris and away from my begonias you will lose an ankle to my darling Marmalade and no mistake._ _”_

_“_ _Honestly, can’t these beggars have the decency to beg in halfway-decent apparel?_ _”_

Some faded part of the boy wanted to lash out at those insults, even as he scurried past their scathing glares towards the manor that they all expected an urchin to be running to. He could feel his mind trying to tighten around their thoughts, could feel that there was something he could do to them.

Instead, the boy climbed the stairs, doing his best to ignore the thoughts of the rich. He advanced towards the door, and lifted his hand to knock. Once, twice, three times, but no answer.

Four, five, six. No answer.

Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. No answer.

The boy did not fall to his knees. He sank to his knees. He felt his stomach, felt the gnawing hunger, and tried to call out with a throat that had not drank all day. No words came, and he let his head fall against the door. There was nowhere else to go but here, and all he had found was an uncaring wall in a world that couldn’t look at him for more than a minute without being overwhelmed with disgust.

“It works better if you ring the doorbell, you know.”

The boy turned to face the voice, and stared in confusion. The person standing over him was a perfect match for himself, and the only hint that he was not looking into some strange mirror was that the stranger was wearing a heavy blue cloak drawn close around his body.

“You look like you’ve been through the ringer, friend.” This stranger’s mind was shivering with confusion about the matching faces, but his expressions did not betray even a hint of the inner turmoil. He stepped forward with all the swagger and confidence of a boy twice his age, and pulled an ornate silken rope that the boy had somehow missed. “Let’s get you inside, get you cleaned up.”

The boy got to his feet, and was just about to say thanks when the door behind him swung open. “Oh, dear. And what happened to you, poor one?”

There was a woman standing in the door, resplendent in white gossamer and woven gold. Her eyes were strange, an unbroken sea of emerald-green without so much as the pinprick of a pupil. But if the eyes were alien, then the smile was everything warm and familiar that the boy could not remember. She was kind, and worried, and running the numbers on how hungry he would be.

“I don’t know what happened.” He choked on the last word, his throat too dry for speaking. Twin surges of concern spiked around him, blazing stars of worry that held him and carried him inside and cooed about getting him a glass of water. Lifetimes surged around the boy, of remedies learned by brutal trial and error, of companions gasping in the alleys when everything had gone wrong, thief and nurse bearing so many of the same scars…

Scars. He had scars, didn’t he? There could be scars of the mind, the word was trauma, she was so worried about any trauma he had suffered. Something must have happened to him. Something to take away everything he knew, to leave him broken and alone on the street, to make him depend on them. He tried to remember, tried to cast his memories back to that moment, bent inward, find out what was missing!

The boy fell to his knees in a strange world, mountains of broken glass in which were reflected the past few hours of his life. They shifted at his thoughts, sliding like mighty glaciers across a shattered world.

 _Mindscape_. The word came from nowhere, but it seemed to make sense. It seemed broken enough to fit the bill. The boy got to his feet and pushed deeper into the glass, searching for something older than a day. Beyond that first mountain range of broken glass, there was a tiny plain of fist-sized chunks, a collection of muscle memories and basic language. The boy got on his knees and started to sift through them, hoping for something hidden. Two shards skipped across the plain, beckoned by his desires.

One of them showed a reflection of his belt. There was something hidden in the buckle, tucked away so that nobody could see it on first glance. And in the second shard…

A ring stretched lengthwise, broken open at the bottom, with a circle floating in the middle. It meant something, he was certain of it. It meant something horrible, something terrifying and dangerous that he feared so much that it would survive the complete destruction of his mind.

The boy awoke with a start. They had found a bed for him, and the other boy was holding his mouth open while the woman poured water down his throat a little at a time. He raised his hands, and both stepped away.

“You gave us quite a fright, child. I thought we might lose you for a moment there.”

“And all before introductions, too!” The bravado was only voice-deep; this other child was just as worried for the boy as the woman was. He held out a hand to the boy, who took it weakly. “The name’s Kallist Rhoka.”

“As for myself, my name is Emmara Tandris.” Emmara held the boy’s other hand, and smiled like the sunrise. “And how about you, child?”

The boy started to say that he didn’t know, but then he remembered. “My belt… where’s my belt?”

Emmara’s eyes flashed with concern. “Your belt? It’s still around your waist, dear. Are you quite alright?”

“No,” the boy muttered as his hands went for his belt. His thumb scraped against a piece of paper, and he pulled it free and unrolled it, desperate for any kind of answer to his questions.

_My name is Jace Beleren. I have the power to read minds. There are other worlds beyond Vryn, worlds that only certain people can reach. I am one of those people. I am a planeswalker._

The boy stared at the paper. Emmara stared at the paper. Kallist stared at the paper.

He sat up in his bed, and gave the world a weak smile. That was one question answered, at least. “I guess you can call me Jace Beleren.”

**Author's Note:**

> A Distant Prologue is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
> 
> You can find me at goblins-choose-to-live.tumblr.com, where you can feel free to shoot me all manner of questions about this insane project.
> 
> Bet you can't spot all the card references!


End file.
